Creative Pathways for Wandering Animals

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think too much about animal migration. In fact, I learned more about it this summer than ever before and, truthfully, it was fascinating. Really! I was under the impression that the wild, hooved animals just wandered around all year long in their same territory, trying to feed themselves as “individuals.” Turns out, I was partly right, (which is better than being totally off-base!) 

The Wyoming animals, including Pronghorn antelope, Mule deer, Big Horn sheep and elk are pretty much independent or “hang out” with their families or small groups while harvesting the tender spring shoots of grass. During the Summer and fall, with plenty of delectable fodder, they fatten up and keep grazing to prepare for winter.

But, while this information is pertinent to Wyoming, I suspect it is true in other states. Quite likely there might be similar patterns of behavior, with hooved animals migrating from the mountains to the valleys as the snow deepens, to find nourishment during the long winter months to perpetuate their survival.

No matter the location of the hoofed animals in Western states, their habits and transitions to other environments during the fall and winter is fascinating. Take the Pronghorn antelope in the area in and near Sublette County, Wyoming, when weather temperatures hit freezing levels, or below freezing temperatures and normal grasses wither and lack nutrition. The Pronghorn have a choice; stay there and starve as winter continues to march in, with water sources frozen, food inedible and covered with snow, OR move to other areas that provide more nutrition.

Luckily for the antelope in Sublette County, the local Game and Fish employees identified migration routes many years ago. And there is something else unusual about the antelope. Unlike other hooved animals such as moose, deer and elk that are agile at jumping over fences, antelope prefer to find a hole in the fence to go through. There are many barbed-wire fences in the West and unfortunately, the antelope sometimes get caught in barbed wire and die of starvation.

The Game and Fish Department made many observations of this through the years and noted that long streams of antelope would follow a fence for miles while looking for a “pass-through” to their accustomed winter feed grounds. They first designed “underpasses” for the antelope, but they were skittish about entering an underground tunnel. So, they changed the plan to an overpass in a strategic location for the antelope so they could follow the fence-line and then pass over the highway safely to their destination. With no fencing on the other side of the highway, they could meander safely to their valley for the winter and follow the same way back in the spring.

Interestingly, the antelope herd is always led by the females in the group (have to wonder why that is!) The Teton Pronghorn herd makes the second longest migration - only the caribou in the Arctic make a longer migration in the Western Hemisphere.

As the snow continues to accumulate, temperatures drop consistently, and there’s a minimum of foraging material for the migrating herds. They move in a direction that is less harsh and to lower elevations toward foraging that is accessible.

Lower elevations mean that temperatures are more tolerable, rarely above zero, but more tolerable than the chilling blasts of wind and snow in the mountains. And when I say “chilling” it’s no exaggeration! The coldest weather we ever experienced in Wyoming was on New Year’s Eve and it was, honestly, 45 degrees below ZERO on the thermometer. It’s so cold that your car tires freeze in a flatter shape on the ground and when you start up your car to drive away, the tires clunk on the pavement until they warm up, thanks to the friction with the road.

Now you can understand more why the animals travel to the valleys to shield themselves from the worst of the deep freeze, and blizzard conditions, and a better chance to find food. In Jackson Hole, in Teton County, there is an Elk Refuge that takes up miles of land very close to the town and serves as exactly what it says. Thousands of elk migrate to this area, which has a long-standing tourist attraction, with a sled to take visitors out into the elk herd to watch the distribution of hay to the animals gathered there. If not for this generous hand-out, hundreds of elk would starve. It’s fun to see these magnificent animals up close, breathing frosty air and seeming to be comfortable in the Elk Refuge.