Deep Migrations: Lost, altered, and conserved big game corridors in Wyoming

Russel, Bailey; Nickerson, Gregory

Publication

Deep Migrations: Lost, altered, and conserved big game corridors in Wyoming

Russel, Bailey
;
Nickerson, Gregory

Description

Each step that an elk, mule deer or pronghorn takes during its migration leaves a mark on the land. The tracks may be ephemeral, but together they become corridors that are passed down from generation to generation. These ancestral trails sometimes endure in the collective memory of herds for millennia. This interdisciplinary book and exhibit examines the roots of Wyoming’s ungulate migrations through essays and photography. The contributors began by looking at migration corridor data cooperatively gathered by the Wyoming Game & Fish Dept., the Wyoming Migration Initiative, and the United States Geological Survey’s Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Wyoming. From there, each author developed a unique vision for this collaborative documentary of migration landscapes. The result is a conversation as wide-ranging as Wyoming’s open spaces: from the remains of extinct mammoths and lost migrations of Laramie Plains bison, to modern corridors and wildlife overpasses in the Green River Basin. The authors offer a composite view of the traces migratory animals leave on the land, and in our consciousness.