The Essential Pronghorn Corridor in the Greater Hart-Sheldon
The sagebrush-covered hills that straddle the southeastern Oregon and northern Nevada border provide essential habitat for pronghorn, as well as hundreds of other plants and animals.
In 2016, this Greater Hart-Sheldon region supported more than 8,000 pronghorn. However, populations have declined since then, with the most recent count at 4,313 animals in 2019.
As information newly published by the U.S. Geological Survey highlights, this landscape is critically important to the future of North America’s “prairie ghost.”
Oregon Natural Desert Association, a conservation group based in Bend, Oregon, has used this GIS data to create a map which highlights how much of the migration corridor lacks a strong protective status.
A MASSIVE CORRIDOR
The Greater Hart-Sheldon supports a 1.76 million acre migratory corridor for pronghorn. The majority of this corridor — 62 percent — is on public land administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge and Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), anchor the northern and southern ends of the corridor.
Other owners manage 9 percent of the corridor.
Pronghorn Corridor Management:
- BLM Public Lands (55.5%)
- BLM National Conservation Area (6.5%)
- US Fish and Wildlife Service Lands (29%)
- Other Land Ownership (9%)
Data sources
Kaufman. M., et al., (2022), Ungulate migrations of the western United States, volume 2: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2022–5008, 160 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20225008.
Zeller, K. A., et al., (2021). Forecasting habitat and connectivity for pronghorn across the Great Basin ecoregion. Diversity and Distributions, 27(12), 2315–2329. https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.13402
Download ONDA’s infographic. Originally published at https://onda.org on August 24, 2022.
