BLM fixes fences to help pronghorn migrations

Abel Guevara, a wildlife biologist with the Bureau of Land Management in Glasgow, has watched pronghorn running at top speed slide under a fence and pop up on the other side. It's something to see, he said. "They don't really stop," Guevara said. "It's like a baseball slide." In February, BLM's Glasgow Field Office modified several miles of fence on both sides of U.S. Highway 2 west of Glasgow to give pronghorn a better chance of a safe slide. "It's a good project," Guevara said. Pronghorn antelope usually crawl under fences, rather than jumping over them, he said. But some types of fences can prevent them from crossing underneath, and barbed wire can grab their backs when they do, he added. The low, barbed wire scrapes the fur off of the backs of pronghorn, making them susceptible to frostbite and infection, Guevara said. Pronghorn sometimes run back-and-forth for days along fences they can't pass, or get hung up trying to get through, he said. "It's just a horrible way for an animal to go," Guevara said. The BLM's recent work modifying the fencing is part of a bigger effort by government land and wildlife management agencies and private groups in northeastern Montana to remove obstacles in east-west running fences that hinder seasonal north-south movements of pronghorn. "We're looking at it on a landscape level," Guevara said. "It's not just a one-time fix." Over two weeks last month, BLM wildland firefighters Jason Snellman and Rich Hayner replaced the bottom barbed wire with smooth wire, and raised the fence bottom 16 inches off the ground, on five-and-a-half miles of fencing...more

I'll bet the coyotes will like it too. And here we go with that landscape thing again. As a reminder, you might want review what I've previously written on landscape planning.