WEST biologist Hall Sawyer and statistician Andrew Telander recently completed the Lander Region/Red Desert Pronghorn study for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. The final report illustrates movement patterns from GPS collars, documents a mass mortality event, and identifies over 100,000 acres of habitat inaccessible to pronghorn because of fencing.
Less than a year after the study was completed, state and federal agencies, landowners, and non-governmental organizations joined forces to replace 28 miles of fencing, effectively opening 15,000 acres of habitat to pronghorn. The Wyoming Migration Initiative produced a short film entitled โUnwiredโ that highlights this data driven success story about connecting working landscapes.
Concurrently, the WEST report led to a collaborative research effort with the University of Wyoming that was published in Current Biology by Cell Press. The article illustrates the importance of connected landscapes and how movement barriers, such as roads and fences, exacerbate pronghorn mortality during severe winters.
โ๐๐ตโ๐ด ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ธ๐ข๐ณ๐ฅ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ด๐ฆ๐ฆ ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด๐ฆ๐ข๐ณ๐ค๐ฉ ๐ธ๐ช๐ต๐ฉ ๐ด๐ต๐ข๐ต๐ฆ ๐ข๐จ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ค๐ช๐ฆ๐ด ๐ฉ๐ข๐ท๐ฆ ๐ช๐ฎ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฅ๐ช๐ข๐ต๐ฆ ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ง๐ช๐ต๐ด ๐ง๐ฐ๐ณ ๐ธ๐ช๐ญ๐ฅ๐ญ๐ช๐ง๐ฆ,โ says Hall Sawyer.
For more information, check out the film (https://lnkd.in/dGDtrAAj), research article, or media coverage from WyoFile and University of Wyoming.
