(25 pts) Next, focus on Wyoming’s recent efforts to conserve ungulate migration corridors based on many years of migration research at the University of Wyoming. Please read this article, and also Wyoming’s Migration Corridor Strategy (also uploaded onto Canvas course website) and the Governor’s subsequent October 2020 Executive Order (also uploaded onto Canvas course website) on the topic, including the appendices. Please reflect on this issue by writing 2 pages, double spaced and citing at least 10 references (references are not included in page length) on:
a. (5 pts) Does this corridor strategy cover all the concerns you think there are for Wyoming’s migratory wildlife? What is missing, if anything, and why do you think it was not included?
The ungulate migration corridor strategy implemented by the state of Wyoming is
very thorough. It covers many concerns brought to the state such as designating the corridors through the state department, assessing risks in new areas, and more.
There are four key actions that the strategy specifically outlines, including the two
concerns in the previous sentence. If I had to say that there was anything missing from the strategy, it would be the fact that is assesses little on the physiological change that the ungulates go through during the winter months to travel through the migration corridors and stopover areas. Now this isn’t a problem that is necessarily missing from the strategy, as outlines in the current knowledge and science and research needs section. The strategy states that the current research cannot give the answer to problems about this. They wrote that this is one specific
area that needs more attention in the future of the strategy. b. (5 pts) Does this Executive Order, and its appendices, adequately ensure the future for Wyoming’s migratory ungulates? What does it require vs. what does it recommend, allow, or encourage? Any sign of adaptive management approaches, and if so, what is present versus missing (think PrOACT).
The executive order by the state of Wyoming, adequately ensures the future for their migratory ungulates. To successfully help these animals, the state thinks that identifying the migration corridors correctly and swiftly will help immensely. In appendix B of the order, there is a detailed outline, and step by step process that allows an area to be considered a designated area. This requires a minimum of three years of research, and a year for a biological risk assessment. The order recommends that all other uses of the land, such as new infrastructure, recreational use, and development, happens outside of all of these said designated corridors. This would allow the areas to be used to their highest use. (ASK JOC ABOUT ADAPTIVE, flexibility/climate change)
