Biologists tout 160-mile long Pronghorn Antelope Migration Route in Idaho
Researchers say wind farms and associated power lines could threaten travel pathways
by Pinedale Online!
March 16, 2010
Researchers with the Wildlife Conservation Society and Lava Lake Institute released a report of what they are calling a new long-distance pronghorn migration route in Idaho. According to the story, GPS collar data indicates 100 to 200 pronghorn out of a herd of about 1,000 travel approximately 80 miles along the base of the Pioneers Mountains to the Beaverhead Mountains during seasonal travel movements between summer and winter ranges. The release says this "southern Idaho pronghorn population has one of the longest overland migrations in the American West" for the 160-mile round trip. A coalition of landowners, ranchers, conservationists, and state and federal land managers, is working to develop conservation easements and other mechanisms to protect working ranches and farms along the pronghorn travel pathway.
In 2005, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists used pronghorn radio collar data obtained around Pinedale to estimate that 200 pronghorn out of a herd of around 46,000 in the Upper Green River Valley move from winter range south of Pinedale north into Grand Teton National Park during the summer months, a distance of approximately 75 miles one-way. They dubbed the Upper Green to Jackson seasonal movement between summer and winter ranges a migration corridor, naming it the "Path of the Pronghorn, the longest land mammal migration in the continental United States." The Conservation Fund and partners launched a high-profile marketing awareness campaign which ultimately led to land-use restriction measures such as conservation easements and permanent protection of 5,000 acres of private land, including eight miles of Green River tributary frontage, and big game habitat enhancement on over 85,000 acres of public land.
Click here for the Idaho pronghorn migration corridor story: New Long Distance Migration Route for Pronghorn Found in Idaho by Wildlife Conservation Society and Lava Lake Institute
Related Links
Potential Effects Of Oil And Gas Development On Mule Deer And Pronghorn Populations In Western Wyoming - Hall Sawyer, Fred Lindzey, Doug McWhirter, Keith Andrews, 2001(?)
Is It Acceptable to Let a Species Go Extinct in a National Park? - By Dr. Joel Berger, Wildlife Conservation Society, October 2003
Preserving the pronghorn corridor - By Cory Hatch, Jackson Hole News & Guide, January 6, 2008
Trapper's Point/Pinedale - By Robyn Morrison, Redlodge Clearinghouse, April, 2005
Connecting the dots: an invariant migration corridor links the Holocene to the present - Joel Berger, Steven L Cain, and Kim Murray Berger, June 27, 2006
Pronghorn Migration Corridor Environmental Assessment - Bridger-Teton National Forest, May, 2008 (PDF)
Antelope crossing at Trappers Point Bottleneck - Pinedale Online! April 17, 2006
Trappers Point Wildlife Corridor Sensors - Pinedale Online! June 10, 2005
Archaeological Evidence of Pronghorn Migration in the Upper Green River Valley Basin - Paul H. Sanders and Mark E. Miller, Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist, March 2003. Page 5: "At present, there is no archaeological evidence of pronghorn remains in any of the known sites in Jackson Hole, but it doesn’t mean that the evidence doesn’t exist."
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