Donald Trump has never seen a fossil-fuel source he didn’t like, and if a huge new natural gas field being pushed by administration becomes reality, the pronghorns of Wyoming could pay the ultimate choice.
Conservation groups are fighting back, seeking to block the Bureau of Land Management’s fracking and drilling plan.
The dispute involves the Path of the Pronghorn, “a 170-mile migration route that the antelope-like creatures have traveled annually for 6,000 years [and] one of North America’s last remaining long-distance terrestrial migration corridors,” reports The Guardian.
The Path stretches from the dazzling Grand Teton National Park in northwestern Wyoming to the Upper Green River Valley in the southeast.
The Trump administration wants to give the go-ahead for fracking to release natural gas, followed by drilling 3,500 wells – a field that would block the route.
“If this corridor is destroyed by natural gas fields, the people that come to Grand Teton to see these amazing animals will no longer be able to see them,” Linda Baker of the Upper Green River Alliance told The Guardian. “If they can’t get to traditional winter ranges on these pathways, they won’t survive.”
“It’s just not acceptable to let a beautiful species like this go extinct in one of our most iconic national parks,” Baker added.
The BLM is reviewing the conservationists’ legal petition, but it told the Guardian that it believes the energy permits comply with wildlife and environmental regulations.
