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Immense herds of big game animals — bison, elk, deer and pronghorn — enthralled Lewis and Clark as they journey west. The sheer number of animals astonished them. Over thousands of years, their summer and winter land migrations formed the foundation of the cycle of life on the Great Plains. Plants and other animals responded, flourishing in the wake of the migrating herds..
Of these animals, perhaps the pronghorn migration was the most spectacular. Part of an ancient species that dates back 20 million years, some believe they inhabited the Great Plains for more than a million years. Lewis and Clark speak eloquently of their agile, sleek deer-like bodies and describe their quick motion akin to “the rapid flight of birds.”
As North America’s fastest animal — their speed only exceeded by the African cheetah — they migrated long distances and in large numbers. As late as the 1870s, people described seeing a single herd of pronghorns that stretched 70 miles and contained 1 million animals. These seasonal migrations — from high mountain summer ranges to lowland winter ranges — are one of nature’s most spectacular choreographed rituals.
As the American West is tamed, by fences and roadways and man, these stunning migrations are becoming imperiled, particularly for pronghorns who, despite their speed, lack the ability to jump.
It is estimated than between 40 and 100 million pronghorn, often called antelope, roamed the west during Lewis and Clark’s time. That number dwindled to 20,000 by the 1920s, when efforts to bring them back from the brink of extinction began. Their rebound — to about 400,000 today — is considered a conservation success story.
Although no longer considered imperiled, many people are worried about their future, as their migration routes and the routes of other animals are at risk. Today, the conservation challenge is to preserve these migration corridors so the pronghorn and other migrating animals can continue to thrive. Working on a landscape-scale across many boundaries is critical to this success.
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In Their Own Words... |
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"This animal is so extremely fleet and durable that a single horse has no possible chance to overtake them or run them down."
~ Lewis in describing the pronghorn | | The Nature Conservancy is uniquely positioned to help achieve these goals. Some pronghorns migrate from Greater Yellowstone into Montana and Idaho. Helping them means working on a state level and local level, involving a host of local partners — an approach the Conservancy regularly employs in its conservation work.
The Conservancy in Idaho, for example, is working to preserve key migration corridors by attaining conservation easements and securing summer lands, such as in the Henry’s Lake area, which includes the Conservancy’s Flat Ranch Preserve.
Working together, across these boundaries, the Conservancy hopes to preserve and protect vital migration corridors for the pronghorn, one of the few living links with the Ice Age.
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