AR-News: Big game corridors in jeopardy

[jim robertson]

Big game corridors in jeopardy

By JEFF GEARINO
Southwest Wyoming bureau


GREEN RIVER -- Segments of big game migration corridors in the Upper Green 
River Basin near Trapper's Point, in the southern Big Horn Mountains and in 
the northern foothills of the Uinta Mountains are the most at risk in the 
state, a new study shows.

Migration corridors are receiving increasing attention from land managers, 
wildlife officials and conservationists who want to maintain large and 
well-distributed herds of big game animals.

Big game hunting and wildlife viewing provide substantial benefits to state 
and local economies. But the health and continuation of big game herds -- 
and the positive economic effects derived from them -- rely largely on the 
effective management of seasonal range and the migration corridors animals 
use to get to them, the study said.

So protecting and enhancing big game migration within the three regions most 
likely will become a priority for natural resource managers in the near 
future, the report concluded.

The report, entitled "Big Game Migration Corridors in Wyoming," was released 
recently by the Wyoming Open Spaces Initiative.

The open spaces initiative involves the William D. Ruckelshaus Institute of 
the Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming, the UW 
Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, and the Cooperative 
Extension Service, among others.

The analysis said big game animals migrate when seasonal changes reduce food 
availability, make it hard to move around due to snowpack, and make local 
conditions unsuitable for bearing young. Migration corridors provide 
wildlife with reliable passages between seasonal ranges and also serves as 
important transitional range that provides food for migrating animals.

The study said an increasing number of houses, energy development, new 
fences and road construction threaten migration corridors, like at Trapper's 
Point near Daniel in Sublette County.

Development at Trapper's Point has narrowed the corridor to just half-mile 
across. Several thousand mule deer and antelope try to navigate the 
bottleneck each year.

The study noted that another corridor was blocked in 1983 at Red Rim near 
Rawlins when pronghorn attempting to migrate to winter range were stopped by 
a newly erected fence. About 1,000 antelope died from starvation and 
exposure before the fence was removed.

Among Wyoming's seven big game species, mule deer (2,414 miles) and elk 
(2,214 miles) have the greatest cumulative length of mapped migration 
routes, reflecting their widespread and abundant distribution in Wyoming, 
the study said.

Despite their relative abundance in the state, pronghorn have only the third 
largest cumulative length of migration routes (1,906 miles), in part because 
pronghorn tend to remain at lower elevations than elk or mule deer.

By species, migration corridors for white-tailed deer have the lowest 
protection levels because the species inhabits primarily shrub and 
tree-dominated riparian areas in the eastern third of Wyoming where almost 
all land surface is privately owned.

In contrast, the report said bighorn sheep occur mostly in higher and more 
rugged portions of northwestern Wyoming, where much of the habitat is on 
public land. Predictably, bighorn sheep migration routes have the highest 
levels of protection.

Open Spaces Initiative publications can be accessed online at 
(http://www.uwyo.edu/openspaces).