The section that came out is the first of 10 miles of fence that Buzzard and Jakes hope to fix this year through a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant. The removal effort was the result of a cost-sharing agreement among the National Wildlife Federation and the landowners on either side of the fence: the Bureau of Land Management and two ranchers. Read: How virtual fences will transform rural America “Many of them stopped right here” at the 2.1-mile stretch that the volunteers took down in July. “We had collars from 40 animals,” Buzzard says. On Horse Prairie, one of Jakes’ colleagues, Simon Buzzard, combined all three tools-modeling, mapping, and GPS-collar data from a Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks pronghorn study-to identify stretches of fencing that appeared to impede ungulate movement. And they’re studying the paths of GPS-collared animals: If a mule deer makes a 90-degree turn in a section of roadless rangeland, for example, a problem fence could be in the area. Using models, they’ve estimated the locations of fences over large areas and have painstakingly mapped them in a number of important habitats. Recently, though, fence ecologists have begun to unravel some mysteries. And even as satellite-based mapping improves, researchers say it’s difficult to distinguish between an impassable woven-wire fence and, for example, a dilapidated or smooth-wire fence that’s more permeable to wildlife. There is no global fence map as there is for roads fences are hard to see on satellite imagery. But because fences are difficult to study, these projects haven’t had much science to guide them. “Probably a quarter to half of have scarring at this point, from trying to get under,” Jakes says.Ī number of nonprofits, land trusts, ranchers, tribal nations, and government agencies have already removed or modified thousands of miles of harmful fences. Fences also separate mothers from calves, exclude herds from prime habitat, and exhaust and injure animals. Fences often ensnare and kill large animals woven wire with barbed wire on the top, like that on Horse Prairie, is particularly lethal. A 2021 paper reported that pronghorn in Wyoming encountered fences an average of 250 times in a single year and changed their behavior around the barriers nearly 40 percent of the time. Sage grouse, peregrine falcons, and other birds collide with fences, and ungulates must navigate an endless obstacle course. Read: America’s wildlife corridors are in dangerįence-ecology research shows that the West is a wiry place, containing enough fencing to circle the equator 25 times. Today the growing subdiscipline is not just revealing how fences can harm Western wildlife it’s also informing solutions. ![]() In 2018, he and four colleagues published a paper calling for more research on how fences affect ecosystems. ![]() Jakes is a biologist with the National Wildlife Federation and an expert on pronghorn antelope. The group was the last in a two-week parade of helpers that had come out to Horse Prairie, and Jakes believed their hard work wrestling fences would be worth it. Soon, a hundred-plus years of tangled Western history had become a tidy bale.Īndrew Jakes joined the volunteers in a cheer. The winder spun up, and a stretch of woven wire fence lying on the ground jerked into motion. Four volunteers threw up their thumbs- Ready!-and the man flung a switch. Attached to its front was a spool-like contraption called a Dakota wire winder and post puller. One smoke-tinged July morning on Horse Prairie-a plateau of big sagebrush and dusty washes overlooking Horse Prairie Creek in southwestern Montana-a man sat at the helm of a skid-steer loader.
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