Will pronghorns survive a new wave of climate-driven changes the way they did 12,000 years ago—and will we? That’s the question Emilene Ostlind poses in her piece for High Country News, part of their Conservation Beyond Boundaries project. In this blend of science writing and conservation reporting, Ostlind shows how the key to pronghorn survival has long been their small size and adaptability—but fears that, in the rapidly changing West, even that may no longer be enough.
Today, however, they must navigate rural housing and energy development, along with all the fences and highways that crosshatch their world. And habitat fragmentation isn’t the only threat they face: The West is already much warmer than the ancient environment in which they evolved, and it’s getting hotter every year.
The world where pronghorn have long lived — the world where I grew up and where I’m raising my children — is rapidly changing. Drought hits more often; winters are less snowy. Spring melt comes earlier, and streams run lower in late summer. We have fewer frost days, hotter summers, fiercer storms. The shifting temperatures and unpredictable precipitation mean that conifer forests are drying out, burning and dying, while rangelands are succumbing to invasive fire-adapted grasses. In 2024, over 1,300 square miles of Wyoming burned, more than double the acreage of other recent big fire years. Pronghorn feel these changes, too.
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