Chautauqua Climate Change Initiative: February 2025
Landscapes of Hope
Ten summers ago, in the aptly named Paradise Valley north of Yellowstone National Park, I witnessed a remarkable sight. A North American Pronghorn walked across an open field and down to the Yellowstone River.
What’s so remarkable about that? Well, let me tell you.
Pronghorn are one of North America’s most impressive mammals. They have the longest land migration in the continental U.S. and are the fastest land animal in North America, attaining speeds close to 60 miles per hour. It is believed this impressive speed resulted from the pronghorn evolving alongside its principal predator, the North American Cheetah. With the cheetah long extinct, it seems that we are now the biggest threat to pronghorn.
While pronghorn are a game species, that’s not why they’re threatened. Pronghorn share their range with cattle, and where you have cattle, you have fences — lots of fences. And while pronghorn possess lightning speed, they don’t jump, making fences their “kryptonite.” Hundreds of miles of cattle fencing lie in their migration pathways, limiting their access to vital food sources as well as breeding options.
An intrepid group of 20 Chautauquans recently visited prime pronghorn territory, venturing from Montana’s Paradise Valley north of Yellowstone down into the Teton range of Wyoming. On Chautauqua Travels Winter in Yellowstone, we learned about the plight of the pronghorn and other wildlife threatened by human development and climate change. But we also learned about the remarkable resilience of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the organizations helping pronghorn and other animals thrive.
As it turns out, cattle ranchers also love pronghorn and, when asked, many are happy to work with conservationists to help protect them. Throughout pronghorn migration routes, volunteers have worked with ranchers to permanently remove fencing where it’s no longer needed, or temporarily when pronghorn are migrating. Over the past two decades, the pronghorn migration project has helped open hundreds of miles of fence-free habitat. As a result, pronghorn numbers are on the rise.
In fact, that project is how I found myself in the Paradise Valley 10 summers ago, working alongside my then 10-year-old daughter and other volunteers to take down fences. After a long, sweaty day of clipping and spooling barbed wire, as the sun hovered low over the valley, we watched that lone pronghorn cross a field where earlier that day a fence would have blocked its access to the Yellowstone River.
What I learned from that experience 10 years ago — and had the privilege of sharing with Chautauquans last month — is everywhere you look, people are working to help both natural and human communities become more resilient in the face of climate change. I call these places landscapes of hope.
Chautauqua Travels allows us to see these landscapes of hope up close, to learn from local communities about how they are working for a better future, and to deepen our understanding of issues in ways that might benefit our own communities. I hope you’ll consider joining me on a future Chautauqua Travels adventure!