His hooves were designed to climb steep rock, and they allowed him to make it look easy. Bouncing up and down a sheer granite wall, he danced from one tiny shelf to another, often jumping distances several times the length of his own body, landing on ledges that couldn't have been more than a few inches wide.

He was a grand animal, with great horns that formed a perfect arc from his head to his hindquarters. The Persian ibex thrives in rough mountain country, and after watching this magnificent billy awhile, John Goodwin and I could see why.

The ibex was a long way from his original stomping grounds in the mountain country of Iran. Rather, the scene was set in another rough and unlikely spot--the mountain country of southern New Mexico just north of the Mexican border.

In the late 1960s the Shah of Iran presented us with a gift of 15 ibex. After some research, it was determined that the Florida Mountains of southern New Mexico was ideal for them, closely mirroring the habitat of Iran. The ibex were released in the Floridas, and they immediately thrived. Within a few years, their numbers had increased to the point that the New Mexico Department of Game & Fish offered a special hunt.

At the time, our good friend John Goodwin, a Fish & Game officer, had come down to the Floridas to observe the first official New Mexico ibex hunt. I was delighted when John invited me to tag along--quite an adventure for a teenage kid.

I knew the Floridas some, having scaled a few of the less daunting peaks. I'd hunted mule deer in there one time; I'd packed my dad's old sporterized Springfield '06 up and down those jagged mountains and decided I wasn't tough enough to do it again. The range ascends more than 2,800 feet from the desert floor, virtually straight up. Huge masses of granite split by ancient rock slides are the norm, with a vertical graduation that would make Sir Edmund Hillary grin. Scattered through the rock formations are piñon trees, oakscrub, hackberry and other browse.

Officer Goodwin had brought along a spotting scope, and with it we watched several impressive male ibex perform ballets along the unforgiving rock formations. Almost as interesting was watching the hunters ascend to try a shot at one of them. They moved slowly and deliberately--not much of a match for the wary ibex. We observed the scene most of the day, and no animals were taken.