Pronghorn outran the ice age

The world where pronghorn have long lived — the world where I grew up and where I’m raising my children — is rapidly changing. Drought hits more often; winters are less snowy. Spring melt comes earlier, and streams run lower in late summer. We have fewer frost days, hotter summers, fiercer storms. The shifting temperatures and unpredictable precipitation mean that conifer forests are drying out, burning and dying, while rangelands are succumbing to invasive fire-adapted grasses. In 2024, over 1,300 square miles of Wyoming burned, more than double the acreage of other recent big fire years. Pronghorn feel these changes, too.