Pronghorn are remarkable survivors of the Pleistocene megafauna era whose welfare is threatened by the fencing that fragments their migration routes.
Pronghorn welfare is uniquely threatened by fencing designed for livestock management. Unable to jump most fences, pronghorn must crawl under the bottom wire strand — barbed wire catches on fur, causing lacerations and entrapment. Animals caught in fences die from exhaustion, predation, or stress before being found. Climate-related range shifts are pushing pronghorn into more heavily fenced areas. Migration route blockage causes pronghorn to starve in isolated habitat patches when winter conditions would normally prompt migration to lower elevations. Simple fence modifications — raising the bottom strand to 18 inches and smoothing the top strand — dramatically reduce pronghorn entanglement with minimal loss of livestock containment function.