Every fall, this herd of pronghorn antelope treks more than 100 miles from Grand Teton National Park to their winter habitat in the Upper Green River Valley of Wyoming. This phenomenal migration, one of the longest in North America, has been taking place for the past 6,000 years.
As the snows develop and forage becomes unavailable, they migrate and move back, 100 to 150 miles back to the sagebrush basins of the Upper Green River basin where they can access forage through the winter.
Relying on information collected from VHS radio collars, researcher Hall Sawyer mapped this particular pronghorn migration route in 1998, with a half a million animals roaming the range. Wyoming is home to almost as many Pronghorn as people.
Within a hundred-mile radius of Casper, Wyoming, which is located right in the center of state, there’s more pronghorn than anywhere else in the world. Wyoming sustains most of the Pronghorn in North America.
But part of the pronghorn habitat is becoming increasingly fragmented by human development. And some worry that crucial corridors are being severed. Two men have an ambitious plan to find out which obstacles the pronghorn have to navigate. Conservationist and adventurer Rick Ridgeway and photographer Joe Riis have set out to document "This Year's Migration".
Joe proposed to walk with those pronghorn on foot, nobody had ever done that before on foot, and more importantly document the migration in photographs, so that we could increase theawareness about the migration and the threats to the Pronghorn.
Joe Riis is one of National Geographic young explorers. He is a biologist and a wildlife photographer.
We walked, er, the distinct path that the pronghorn migrate in the fall and in the spring. We wanted to view the landscape through the eyes of the pronghorn and see the obstacles that the pronghorn see, see the beauty of the landscape as well as that human obstacles.
The duo quickly establishes that pronghorn are encountering some modern inconveniences along their ancient pathway.
As the snows develop and forage becomes unavailable, they migrate and move back, 100 to 150 miles back to the sagebrush basins of the Upper Green River basin where they can access forage through the winter.
Relying on information collected from VHS radio collars, researcher Hall Sawyer mapped this particular pronghorn migration route in 1998, with a half a million animals roaming the range. Wyoming is home to almost as many Pronghorn as people.
Within a hundred-mile radius of Casper, Wyoming, which is located right in the center of state, there’s more pronghorn than anywhere else in the world. Wyoming sustains most of the Pronghorn in North America.
But part of the pronghorn habitat is becoming increasingly fragmented by human development. And some worry that crucial corridors are being severed. Two men have an ambitious plan to find out which obstacles the pronghorn have to navigate. Conservationist and adventurer Rick Ridgeway and photographer Joe Riis have set out to document "This Year's Migration".
Joe proposed to walk with those pronghorn on foot, nobody had ever done that before on foot, and more importantly document the migration in photographs, so that we could increase theawareness about the migration and the threats to the Pronghorn.
Joe Riis is one of National Geographic young explorers. He is a biologist and a wildlife photographer.
We walked, er, the distinct path that the pronghorn migrate in the fall and in the spring. We wanted to view the landscape through the eyes of the pronghorn and see the obstacles that the pronghorn see, see the beauty of the landscape as well as that human obstacles.
The duo quickly establishes that pronghorn are encountering some modern inconveniences along their ancient pathway.