From Wyofile.com, May 23, 2023

By Mike Koshmrl

“Scientists: ‘Path of the Pronghorn’ misrepresented in gasfield suit”

“Ecologist Joel Berger wasn’t pleased when he learned his research had been cited as evidence — inaccurately, he says — that the famous Path of the Pronghorn migration route ends well short of Jonah Energy’s Normally Pressured Lance gas field. 

The contention came from state and federal attorneys during oral arguments last week in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, where environmental groups are challenging the NPL field. They argue the Bureau of Land Management didn’t properly account for impacts to migratory pronghorn and the world’s largest-known sage grouse winter concentration area.”

To take a virtual journey along the Path of the Pronghorn from the Upper Green River basin to Grand Teton National Park, use our interactive map to open a range-wide view of public lands management in the Upper Green River Basin of Wyoming.

Click on the green, “Layer List” button at the bottom of the map and click the box next to each layer to show state and BLM oil and gas leases by year. Finally, view the Path of the Pronghorn with existing and proposed oil and gas development that may extinguish this awesome natural phenomenon. Please join us by advocating for the Path by writing to Sec. of Interior Deb Haaland, BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning, and Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon. Ask them to designate and protect the Path of the Pronghorn and a 1-mile buffer of No Surface Occupancy on either side.

Based on 25 years of scientific data collected by the Wyoming Game & Fish Dept., the Bureau of Land Management, and professional wildlife biologists, layers include pronghorn crucial winter range where pronghorn can find food and shelter in the harshest of winters. Additional layers show the newest natural gas field, the Normally Pressured Lance (NPL) with 3,500 approved wells; State of Wyoming oil and gas leases and Bureau of Land Management oil and gas leases issued by year, from 2017-2023.  A final layer shows all existing oil and gas leases in the basin. The Upper Green River Alliance proposes that the State of Wyoming and the Bureau of Land Management designate the Path of the Pronghorn along its entire length, from Grand Teton National Park to I-80 and beyond.