For one fabulous 10-day span, I had a charter job out of Brownsville flying three scientists who were conducting a dolphin census in and around South Padre Island. Besides the bottlenose dolphins, however, one of the amazing mammals I learned about was the nilgai, which is the largest antelope in Asia. In the U.S. one of the largest nilgai population resides on the King Ranch.
When we first saw them on the ground from about 500 feet aloft, none of us had a clue what they were. The three scientists aboard were marine biologists who had no real expertise in Asian ...