{"id":451417,"date":"2026-02-05T23:35:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T23:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/451417\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T23:35:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T23:35:16","slug":"industry-reps-hunters-and-others-start-review-of-worlds-longest-pronghorn-migration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/451417\/","title":{"rendered":"Industry reps, hunters and others start review of world\u2019s longest pronghorn migration"},"content":{"rendered":"

PINEDALE\u2014Eleven folks sat in a semicircle stretching out from Robb Slaughter, who chaired a pronghorn migration-focused working group<\/a> that he likened to a football team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Slaughter, who\u2019s a Sweetwater County commissioner, was the quarterback. And the man who appointed the group, Gov. Mark Gordon, was \u201cakin to Jerry Jones\u201d \u2014 their owner and general manager.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gordon didn\u2019t run with the football analogy. But the governor did travel Monday to Sublette County to kick off stakeholder review of the exhaustively studied<\/a> threatened landscapes<\/a> that tens of thousands of pronghorn depend on to reach their summer and winter grounds in the Green River Basin. Wildlife managers have been trying to protect those migration routes for a duration that\u2019s approaching seven years<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Gov. Mark Gordon addresses the Sublette Pronghorn Working Group during its first meeting in Pinedale in February 2026. Robb Slaughter, the group\u2019s chair, listens. (Mike Koshmrl\/WyoFile)<\/p>\n

Gordon addressed the group moments after Slaughter\u2019s introduction. He didn\u2019t shy away from touching on a controversial decision: The governor decided in December to carve out about 270,000 acres<\/a> of proposed protected pronghorn corridor in the Red Desert and east of Farson, a reduction that emanates from the livestock lobby<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI know there are other segments,\u201d Gordon told the working group, adding they shouldn\u2019t get \u201cdistracted\u201d and should instead focus on the remaining eight portions of the migration corridor delineated by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A working group appointed by Gov. Mark Gordon is coming up with recommended changes to the Sublette Pronghorn Migration Corridor, depicted in this map. At the governor\u2019s direction, the group has been told to review eight of the 10 segments wildlife managers identified \u2014 the two easternmost segments won\u2019t be designated. (Wyoming Game and Fish Department)<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s deputy policy advisor, Sara DiRienzo, later confirmed that a revival of the Red Desert and east of Farson segments was not in the cards. \u201cIf you\u2019re talking about adding additional segments, that\u2019s not part of the working group\u2019s charge,\u201d she told WyoFile.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gordon\u2019s charge was detailed to the working group in a Jan. 20 letter<\/a>. Their task was described as \u201chistoric.\u201d Specifically, they\u2019ve been asked to come up with recommendations and hone in on local issues concerning the \u201clongest intact antelope migration in North America.\u201d Efforts to study and protect the pronghorn paths, which stretch 180 miles from Grand Teton National Park to the Interstate 80 corridor, have been ongoing since the turn of the century<\/a> \u2014 well before the state migration policy\u2019s inception.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gordon directed the 11 working group members to review the accuracy of Game and Fish\u2019s 150-page scientific \u201cbiological risk assessment.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 Likewise, they\u2019ve been asked to vet all the components of the 2.3-million-acre corridor, including highly restricted \u201cbottlenecks\u201d and high-use, \u201cstopover,\u201d medium-use and low-use habitat. Another request is for the group to review social and economic impacts from designating the route.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The assemblage of western Wyoming residents represent different stakeholder groups, ranging from oil and gas to conservation to the four counties the migrations tread through.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

How the group will make recommendations is still being decided, DiRienzo said. It hasn\u2019t been determined, for example, if proposals will require majority or consensus support from the group.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s first meeting was pronghorn migration 101. Game and Fish staff presented information about the Sublette Pronghorn Herd, migration science, the state\u2019s migration policy and how it influences projects on public land (private property is exempt<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Will Schultz, the agency\u2019s habitat protection supervisor, spoke about the flexible, permissive nature of Wyoming\u2019s policy<\/a>. Out of more than 100 projects proposed inside the state\u2019s three designated mule deer corridors, there has not been one \u201chard no,\u201d he said, though the location of some infrastructure has been altered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not gotten to a situation where we couldn\u2019t address maintaining the functionality of that corridor,\u201d Schultz said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Interested residents, state employees and advocacy group staff listen to the Sublette Pronghorn Working Group\u2019s first meeting on Feb. 2, 2026, in Pinedale. (Mike Koshmrl\/WyoFile)<\/p>\n

Gordon touted the state\u2019s migration policy during remarks to the working group.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you take a moment and listen,\u201d the governor said, \u201cyou\u2019ll hear other states going, \u2018I wish we could do it the way Wyoming is.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Notably, Wyoming\u2019s policy has never been used to designate a migration corridor since Gordon signed the executive order<\/a> establishing it in 2020. Three mule deer migrations were grandfathered in. In 2024, state wildlife managers opted to \u201cidentify\u201d a mule deer migration in the Wind River Basin<\/a>, but not seek a higher tier of protections.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time [the policy] has been applied, start to finish,\u201d DiRienzo told the group.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Sublette pronghorn working group was asked to complete its recommendations by spring. Its work will take place during a handful of public meetings, a mix of in-person and virtual gatherings. The decision then swings back to Gordon, who can designate the migration, reject it or return it to state wildlife officials for further work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PINEDALE\u2014Eleven folks sat in a semicircle stretching out from Robb Slaughter, who chaired a pronghorn migration-focused working group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-451417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451417","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=451417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}