What is Pronghorn Passage?

Pronghorn Passage is a creative project that incorporates adventure, science, geography, and conservation with visual and written storytelling.

We are two young artists from Wyoming, Emilene Ostlind and Joe Riis. We have and will continue to explore the length of the pronghorn migration corridor in western Wyoming, documenting the journey in photographs and literary essays.

Each autumn pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) that summer in Grand Teton National Park gather into herds of a half-dozen to thirty or more animals and head south through the Gros Ventre Mountains. This is the second longest overland mammal migration in the western hemisphere (after caribou). The pronghorn will end up in the Red Desert as far as 170 miles from where they started. 

Now the corridor is being squeezed down by residential development and mineral extraction on the private and public lands that it crosses. Of the half million pronghorn that live in Wyoming, only about 300 individuals form this migration, these individuals are the only pronghorn that inhabit Grand Teton National Park where the winters are too harsh and the snow gets too deep for pronghorn to survive year-round. Continued presence of the pronghorn in the park depends on keeping the migration corridor open. 

The main goals and objectives of the project are:

• To capture the beauty and wildness of the 170-mile pronghorn migration corridor, which traverses a narrow cliff ledge above the Gros Ventre River, crosses a mountain pass in the Gros Ventre Mountains, navigates the traffic on Highway 191 outside of Pinedale, and ends up in the northern reaches of the Red Desert, by hiking its length during different seasons and trying to see it through the eyes of the pronghorn.

• To translate the biology and natural history of the pronghorn migration for a general audience by incorporating our own field observations with work done by biologists and with observations and stories from local residents.

• To promote protection of the pronghorn of Grand Teton National Park and their extraordinary migration corridor by describing the threats to the corridor as well as instilling awe and appreciation in our audience.