PINEDALE—Eleven folks sat in a semicircle stretching out from Robb Slaughter, who chaired a pronghorn migration-focused working group that he likened to a football team.  Slaughter, who’s a Sweetwater County commissioner, was the quarterback. And the man who appointed the group, Gov. Mark G ordon, was “akin to Jerry Jones” — their owner and general manager.   Gordon didn’t run with the football analogy. But the governor did travel Monday to Sublette County to kick off stakeholder review of the exhaustively studied threatened landscapes that tens of thousands of pronghorn depend on to reach their summer and winter grounds in the Green River Basin. Wildlife managers have been trying to protect those migration routes for a duration that’s approaching seven years.  Gov. Mark Gordon addresses the Sublette Pronghorn Working Group during its first meeting in Pinedale in February 2026. Robb Slaughter, the group’s chair, listens. (Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile) Gordon addressed the group moments after Slaughter’s introduction. He didn’t shy away from touching on a controversial decision: The governor decided in December to carve out about 270,000 acres of proposed protected pronghorn corridor in the Red Desert and east of Farson, a reduction that emanates from the livestock lobby.  “I know there are other segments,” Gordon told the working group, adding they shouldn’t get “distracted” and should instead focus on the remaining eight portions of the migration corridor delineated by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.  A working group appointed by Gov. Mark Gordon is coming up with recommended changes to the Sublette Pronghorn Migration Corridor, depicted in this map. At the governor’s direction, the group has been told to review eight of the 10 segments wildlife managers identified — the two easternmost segments won’t be designated. (Wyoming Game and Fish Department) The governor’s deputy policy advisor, Sara DiRienzo, later confirmed that a revival of the Red Desert and east of Farson segments was not in the cards. “If you’re talking about adding additional segments, that’s not part of the working group’s charge,” she told WyoFile.  Gordon’s charge was detailed to the working group in a Jan. 20 letter. Their task was described as “historic.” Specifically, they’ve been asked to come up with recommendations and hone in on local issues concerning the “longest intact antelope migration in North America.” Efforts to study and protect the pronghorn paths, which stretch 180 miles from Grand Teton National Park to the Interstate 80 corridor, have been ongoing since the turn of the century — well before the state migration policy’s inception.  Gordon directed the 11 working group members to review the accuracy of Game and Fish’s 150-page scientific “biological risk assessment.”  Likewise, they’ve been asked to vet all the components of the 2.3-million-acre corridor, including highly restricted “bottlenecks” and high-use, “stopover,” medium-use and low-use habitat. Another request is for the group to review social and economic impacts from designating the route. The assemblage of western Wyoming residents represent different stakeholder groups, ranging from oil and gas to conservation to the four counties the migrations tread through.   How the group will make recommendations is still being decided, DiRienzo said. It hasn’t been determined, for example, if proposals will require majority or consensus support from the group.  The group’s first meeting was pronghorn migration 101. Game and Fish staff presented information about the Sublette Pronghorn Herd, migration science, the state’s migration policy and how it influences projects on public land (private property is exempt).  Will Schultz, the agency’s habitat protection supervisor, spoke about the flexible, permissive nature of Wyoming’s policy. Out of more than 100 projects proposed inside the state’s three designated mule deer corridors, there has not been one “hard no,” he said, though the location of some infrastructure has been altered. “We have not gotten to a situation where we couldn’t address maintaining the functionality of that corridor,” Schultz said.  Interested residents, state employees and advocacy group staff listen to the Sublette Pronghorn Working Group’s first meeting on Feb. 2, 2026, in Pinedale. (Mike Koshmrl/WyoFile) Gordon touted the state’s migration policy during remarks to the working group. “If you take a moment and listen,” the governor said, “you’ll hear other states going, ‘I wish we could do it the way Wyoming is.’”  Notably, Wyoming’s policy has never been used to designate a migration corridor since Gordon signed the executive order establishing it in 2020. Three mule deer migrations were grandfathered in. In 2024, state wildlife managers opted to “identify” a mule deer migration in the Wind River Basin, but not seek a higher tier of protections.   “This is the first time [the policy] has been applied, start to finish,” DiRienzo told the group.  The Sublette pronghorn working group was asked to complete its recommendations by spring. Its work will take place during a handful of public meetings, a mix of in-person and virtual gatherings. The decision then swings back to Gordon, who can designate the migration, reject it or return it to state wildlife officials for further work. The post Industry reps, hunters and others start review of world’s longest pronghorn migration appeared first on WyoFile . ...read more read less