{"id":131141,"date":"2025-09-04T02:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T02:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/131141\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T02:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T02:14:09","slug":"wyoming-appeases-stockgrowers-trims-red-desert-and-southwestern-winds-from-path-of-the-pronghorn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/131141\/","title":{"rendered":"Wyoming appeases stockgrowers, trims Red Desert and southwestern Winds from \u2018Path of the Pronghorn\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Proposed pronghorn migration corridor protections flowing by Jim Magagna\u2019s west slope Wind River Range ranch didn\u2019t look right to the longtime livestock industry lobbyist<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two portions of the Sublette Pronghorn Migration Corridor \u2014\u00a0 the \u201cRed Desert\u201d and \u201cEast of Farson\u201d segments \u2014 were \u201cbasically separate,\u201d \u201cmuch shorter,\u201d lacked bottlenecks<\/a> and \u201cdon\u2019t have any of the same risks\u201d as the other eight segments traversed by the long-studied Green River Basin pronghorn herd, Magagna told WyoFile.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they need a formal designation \u2014 which I tend to think they probably don\u2019t \u2014 that ought to be a separate process,\u201d said Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Jim Magagna guides a separated lamb back to its flock at his southwestern Wind River Range ranch in July 2023. (Mike Koshmrl\/WyoFile)<\/p>\n

In public meetings, a formal comment letter<\/a> and in conversations with \u201cvarious people at the top,\u201d Magagna let it be known that he wanted the 270,000-plus acres dropped and not designated as a migration path. That\u2019s about one-tenth of the proposed corridor\u2019s overall acreage. The request, he said, was not based on the migration paths going through his ranch and federal land grazing allotments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the public learned that Magagna is in line to get his wish.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Game and Fish Department outlined its current proposal ahead of next week\u2019s Wyoming Game and Fish Commission vote on whether to advance the state\u2019s first protected pronghorn corridor. If approved, the commission\u2019s recommendation would then go to Gov. Mark Gordon \u2014 the next step in a politically fraught process<\/a> that\u2019s been going on for six years and counting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Wyoming Game and Fish Department officials are no longer recommending the designation of two southeastern segments formerly considered part of the Sublette Pronghorn Herd\u2019s migration corridor, illustrated in this map. The segments would be \u201cidentified,\u201d but not \u201cdesignated\u201d and not afforded policy protections if Game and Fish commissioners agree to the change. (WGFD)<\/p>\n

One document<\/a> shows that the state wildlife agency no longer wants to designate the \u201cRed Desert\u201d and \u201cEast of Farson\u201d segments as part of the migration corridor. The recommendation doesn\u2019t mention Magagna\u2019s input, instead citing a lack of \u201chigh-use\u201d habitat in the area, no bottlenecks and \u201climited threat levels\u201d as the rationale for dropping two of the pronghorn corridor\u2019s ten segments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Game and Fish officials couldn\u2019t be reached Tuesday or Wednesday morning for an interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rich Guenzel, a retired Game and Fish biologist who personally endowed a pronghorn-specific conservation fund<\/a>, sees the move as detrimental to pronghorn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy recommendation to the commission is that they go with the biology,\u201d he told WyoFile. \u201cThis is your opportunity to get the best [outcome] for wildlife. We shouldn\u2019t water it down on our own, we should take our best shot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Rich Guenzel, a former wildlife biologist with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, listens as Game and Fish commissioners ask him questions in 2024. (Billy Arnold\/Jackson Hole News&Guide)<\/p>\n

Guenzel, who\u2019s a member of the Wyoming Outdoor Hall of Fame<\/a>, pointed out an \u201carea working group,\u201d which will include industry representatives, has yet to convene and will have an opportunity to tinker with the migration protection proposal stemming from the state agency\u2019s science-based assessment<\/a>. Then the actual decision will be made by Gov. Mark Gordon or a future governor, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s going to be a political decision,\u201d Guenzel said, \u201clet the politicians own it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission has shown some appetite for shooting down politically influenced wildlife management proposals from its department. In July, the governor-appointed body reversed planned hikes in hunting quotas for mountain lions<\/a> in the Laramie Mountains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s going to be a political decision, let the politicians own it.\u201d<\/p>\n

rich guenzel<\/p>\n

At least one conservation group that has tracked the sluggish implementation of Wyoming\u2019s migration policy<\/a> voiced similar concerns to Guenzel. Greater Yellowstone Coalition staffer Jared Baecker said he supports Game and Fish\u2019s earlier inclusion of all 10 migration segments, which used data from over 600 GPS-collared pronghorn tracked over two decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Wyoming Game and Fish Department\u2019s data has demonstrated the importance of the East Farson and Red Desert segments to pronghorn survival during the winter of 2022\/2023<\/a>,\u201d Baecker wrote in an email. \u201cExcluding these areas from designation goes against the North American model of including the best-available science in wildlife management.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Game and Fish commission will also consider authorizing some additions to the proposed pronghorn corridor. The tacked-on areas stem from 54 animals fitted with GPS collars between fall 2022 and this spring, and include 5,900 acres of \u201chigh use\u201d corridor, 29,000 acres of \u201cmedium use\u201d corridor and 119,000 acres of \u201clow use\u201d habitat. <\/p>\n

\"\"Continued monitoring of the Sublette Pronghorn Herd has tentatively added\u00a0 tens of thousands of acres of habitat to the proposed migration corridor. New acreage is in red. (WGFD)<\/p>\n

The added habitat is a drop in the bucket relative to the expanse of the overall migration corridor, which was sized up at 2.6 million acres \u2014 larger than Yellowstone National Park \u2014 prior to the planned removal of the \u201cRed Desert\u201d and \u201cEast of Farson\u201d segments, which would lop off the 270,000-plus acres.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although the corridor covers a lot of ground, only its bottlenecks, totalling 27,375 acres, would be subject to rigid policies governing surface-disturbing activities. And nearly half of the bottleneck acreage would be exempt from protections because it occurs on private land, which isn\u2019t subject to restrictions imposed by Wyoming\u2019s migration policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wyoming\u2019s migration policy has been ballyhooed<\/a> and called one of the first and most robust forays into the conservation of wildlife migration. But the current policy \u2014 in 2019, due to controversy<\/a>, it was updated and codified as an executive order<\/a> under Gordon \u2014 has still never been used to designate a corridor in a state where dozens have been scientifically mapped<\/a>. The Sublette Pronghorn Herd\u2019s migration is the first attempt.<\/p>\n

At 8:30 a.m. Sept. 10 in Lander, the Game and Commission is scheduled to vote<\/a> on whether Gordon or a future governor should formally designate the state\u2019s first migration corridor under the new policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Proposed pronghorn migration corridor protections flowing by Jim Magagna\u2019s west slope Wind River Range ranch didn\u2019t look right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-131141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}