Meet the latest player in the fractious debate over 鈥�fracking鈥� for natural gas: the . Disturbance from drilling is causing the fleet-footed ungulates to vacate their prime wintering grounds in Wyoming.
In winter, pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) migrate from higher ground to the 鈥� which in recent years has experienced a boom in gas drilling.
To study the effects of this development, a team led by , of the Wildlife Conservation Society, based in Bozeman, Montana, put GPS collars on 125 female pronghorn and tracked their movement.
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Between 2005 and 2009 the researchers documented a five-fold decline in the use of habitat patches predicted to be of the highest quality, as the animals avoided areas disturbed by drilling. 鈥淲e are seeing the abandonment of crucial winter range,鈥� says Beckmann.
Pronghorn populations haven鈥檛 yet begun to fall, but a parallel study of the area鈥檚 (Odocoileus hemionus), a more sedentary species, doesn鈥檛 bode well: its numbers declined by 50 per cent over the same period.
By 2009 more than 3300 wells had been drilled in the Upper Green River basin, many of which are fracked, and thousands more are expected to follow. The researchers want the federal , which must approve drilling operations, to minimise wildlife disturbance. That could be done by concentrating wells onto fewer drill pads, and using 鈥渄irectional drilling鈥� techniques to extend the wells horizontally.
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