New project aims to bring youth and research together to boost migrating wildlife

Posted 12/31/19

Creating wildlife friendly fences are increasingly becoming a priority for private organizations and government entities. A new grant awarded to the Draper Museum of Natural History at the Buffalo …

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New project aims to bring youth and research together to boost migrating wildlife

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Creating wildlife friendly fences are increasingly becoming a priority for private organizations and government entities. A new grant awarded to the Draper Museum of Natural History at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West will soon add several miles of passable routes in the Big Horn Basin.

But even with a gang of concerned groups focusing on the issue, obstacles will force the fight to assist migrating and resident wildlife well into the future. One of the biggest issues is exciting youth to join the fight — and that’s what the recent grant to the Draper from the Wyoming Wildlife Foundation aims to address.

The Wyoming Youth for Natural Resources grant is designed to encourage youth to learn about the state’s natural resources, science and technology, and their application. The grant awarded this month will not only equip an up to 5-mile stretch of fencing with a wildlife friendly bottom strand this coming spring, but take the fight into future generations.

“This is a great project, and we’ve funded a fair number of this type,” said Craig Showalter, president of the Wyoming Community Foundation and acting director of the Wyoming Wildlife Foundation. “It’s a relatively small investment for the return to get kids involved.”

Showalter called it a win-win.

“Five miles of fence will open up critical points of corridors, but they’re not just stringing fence,” he said. “They’re encouraging youth to learn the science, and hopefully, some day, creating new scientists.”

Current adult volunteers often began helping out when they were young, Showalter said. “Once it gets a hold of them, they’ll be there for a lifetime of passion and commitment.”

It’s not good enough to simply teach kids about conservation and pressing science issues in the classroom, he said. “Ultimately, it’s very important to give youth the chance to actually get out outdoors and do some work. It teaches respect for our natural resources.”

The task seems fairly simple. To increase permeability for pronghorn, the bottom rung of barbed-wire fencing is replaced with a non-barbed wire. Pronghorn aren’t adapted to fences and either can’t or won’t jump the top rung. They usually try to crawl under the fence, often becoming tangled in the top strands or cut and caught in the bottom strands.

In some cases, the bottom rung needs to be movable.

“Think about snow accumulation,” said Corey Anco, assistant curator at the Draper. “It may look great in summer, but if you have 18 inches [of clearance] in summer and then it snows 6 to 8 inches, it’s still a barrier.”

It’s not just an issue with pronghorn, said Amanda Withroder, habitat protection supervisor for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

“If you have an issue with pronghorn movement, the fence specifications will be different than if you have a deer movement issue,” she said. “One needs facilitation to get under the fence and the other needs facilitation to get over the fence.”

Withroder works closely with the Wyoming Department of Transportation to “craft the best fence for the issue that we’re attempting to solve.”

Making changes is expensive, takes a lot of manpower and there are thousands of miles of habitat fragmenting fences in the state. Interagency planning is an important part of the process, she said. The Wyoming Wildlife Foundation specifically likes to fund projects with multiple partners.

The Draper Museum of Natural History is partnering with Science Kids Cody (a local nonprofit seeking to engage youth with science and the outdoors) and representatives from the Bureau of Land Management. They hope to add the Game and Fish as a partner in the near future. Anco said research gathered by the department and other organizations from sources like GPS collars could be helpful in locating problem areas in Park County. Anecdotal evidence collected from biologists with years of experience is important as well.

“The hope is we can really scale this up at some point,” Anco said, adding, “The more people involved in protecting wildlife the better.”

While the Game and Fish has identified several pinch points in need of relief, data from last summer’s collaring efforts is still a few years off, said Corey Class, Cody region wildlife management coordinator for the department.

“We have several stretches identified, one of them being between [Cody] and Meeteetse,” he said. “Some of the fences have already been done; when [the Wyoming Department of Transportation] does a road project, sometimes money for fencing comes with it.”

Yet landowners ultimately have the final word on how fencing is completed, Class said. “Sometimes suggested designs meet their needs, sometimes it doesn’t. Their biggest concern is protecting calves and lambs,” he said. “Landowners have to agree with the project.”

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