Making Home on the Range Safer for Big Game

New NRCS Technical Note Details Wildlife-Friendlier Fence Conservation Planning and Design Guidance

The American West is home to some of the world’s most iconic large mammal populations. Each year, millions come to watch, stalk, or photograph elk, mule deer, moose, and pronghorn as they move across the West’s public and private landscapes. An integral part of the region’s ecology, economy, and culture, these animals have come to represent the very essence of the West.
 
Recent breakthroughs in technology like GPS collars and motion-triggered cameras have provided scientists, land managers, and private landowners with fresh knowledge of how these animals move across this vast landscape and new insights into their ancient migratory routes.
 
This research has increased awareness of the importance of maintaining landscape connectivity to sustain the region’s big game populations, while simultaneously shedding light on factors and features that impair movements.
 
A new USDA-NRCS Technical Note, published in December 2023, is helping managers, conservationists, landowners, and practitioners better avoid, minimize, and mitigate impacts caused by one of the most pervasive features that animals in the West encounter – fences.
 
Fences are an important tool built to manage livestock, delineate political and property boundaries, and protect natural resources. However, when fences block animal movements, they can stress, injure, or even kill. As awareness of fence effects on wildlife grows among land and wildlife managers, landowners, and conservation partners, there is rapidly growing interest in how to reduce impacts.
 
Authored by a diverse group of experts, “Improving Fence Passage for Migratory Big Game: Examples and Lessons Learned from Wyoming’s Migratory Big Game Partnership” provides context, guidance for inventory, conservation planning, decision support, and implementation, along with references to dozens of relevant scientific papers in an easy-to-digest package.
 
The publication comes on the heels of the USDA-NRCS expanding the Migratory Big Game Initiative from a successful pilot program in Wyoming to a broader initiative that includes landscapes in Montana and Idaho. Making fences safer for migratory big game that encounter them is a primary practice addressed through this initiative, and the Technical Note includes lessons learned from the Wyoming pilot. 
 
Appendices include illustrations of a variety of wildlife-friendlier fence design options. 

BIOLOGY TECHNICAL NOTE NO. 93 – IMPROVING FENCE PASSAGE FOR MIGRATORY BIG GAME: EXAMPLES AND LESSONS LEARNED FROM WYOMING’S MIGRATORY BIG GAME PARTNERSHIP

Purpose: Fences are a pervasive feature of western working landscapes and a useful management tool, but they also have serious potential to impact wildlife, with some acting as movement barriers and others causing injury or even death. Fences are of particular concern for migratory populations of big game in the western United States, where herds often move hundreds of miles between seasonal ranges.

This technical note is intended for NRCS conservation planners and partners working with agricultural producers and public land managers to facilitate migratory big game movements. It draws upon the existing body of science and expertise of Wyoming partners engaged in this work for over a decade to share the best available information with others across the West.

The note supplements the NRCS National Planning Procedures Handbook, providing details throughout the conservation planning process on removing, modifying, or building fences when migratory big game is a resource concern. The note covers a variety of topics from inventory to monitoring and presents design alternatives from avoiding fence impacts altogether to minimizing and mitigating impacts through “wildlife-friendlier” fence options.

Citation: Hamilton, C., R. Meade, J. D. Maestas, B. Jensen, J. Hartung, K. Clause, J. Randall, T. Fieseler, M. Purcell, R. Karhu, A. Middleton, D. Naugle, T. Griffiths. 2023. Improving fence passage for migratory big game: Examples and lessons learned from Wyoming’s migratory big game partnership. Technical Note No. 93. USDA-NRCS, Washington, D.C.

Permanent Link: https://www.wlfw.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/TN-190-BIO-93.pdf