Fence removal, modification aiding Yellowstone wildlife

Fences are meant to keep animals in or out, not to let them through.

But a unique partnership has been forged specifically to help pronghorns crawl under fences outside Yellowstone National Parks North Entrance along their migration route to the Paradise Valley, a historic winter range.

Since 2010 the National Parks Conservation Association has received funding from Nature Valley to remove or alter about 18 miles of fence. The group has partnered with students, the Bureau of Land Management, Yellowstone Park, the Forest Service and the Fish, Wildlife and Parks area biologist to complete the work.

We try to be strategic with the fences we remove or modify, said Stephanie Adams, program coordinator in the NPCAs Bozeman office.

The NPCA is doing similar work in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming to help pronghorns that migrate from the park up to 170 miles south to the Upper Green River Basin one of the longest animal migrations in North America.

Remove or modify

Early on, NPCA and its volunteers removed old fencing no longer needed on Gallatin National Forest lands, Adams said. Last Friday the workers finished rebuilding a fence around the BLMs 130-acre Carbella fishing access site along the Yellowstone River.

After taking out the old fence, a new enclosure around the site was built with smooth wire 18 inches above the ground on the bottom. Thats important since pronghorns typically wont jump a fence, preferring to crawl under. The top wire of the fence was also set lower than usual to allow other wildlife like elk and deer to more easily jump over.

Its a great partnership that NPCA formed, said John Sandford, a BLM natural resource specialist who took part in the work on Friday and last year. Theyve gotten a lot of stuff done with volunteer labor and even supplied the material.

Moving on

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Fence removal, modification aiding Yellowstone wildlife