A small family farm sits in rural South Dakota with fields and orchards stretching to meet the blue sky at the horizon. When Joe Riis was a boy, the South Dakota prairie was a fantastic place to study the natural world and the interactions between people and wild animals. His father taught him to appreciate the realities of being both a biologist and a hunter providing food for the family. Joe watched birds migrating through the seasons and sometimes stopping over at their farm. He was also intrigued by his parents’ interest in wildlife photography. Joe absorbed those influences and started down his own path to becoming a wildlife photographer when he was a teenager.
The big predators like bears, mountain lions, and wolves are the usual favorites of photographers, but Joe was always more interested in ungulates. Ungulates are hoofed animals like deer, elk and pronghorn antelope that live on the North American plains and up into the Rocky Mountains. Learning about the great migrations of the world including the caribou of the far north and the wildebeest of Africa led Joe to wonder, are the animals here in the American west also migrating? If so, where do they go?
Doing some migrating of his own, Joe went to college at the University of Wyoming to study wildlife biology. While at UW, he decided that his strength lay in photography and documenting animal movements, rather than as a research biologist. He wanted to go on adventures in the wild and follow the animals where people didn’t usually go. He wanted to support researchers who were studying wildlife and then help bring that knowledge to the public.
Photo from the film Elk River
At the time, not much was known about the movements of ungulates that summer in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, a huge area covering northwest Wyoming and parts of Idaho and Montana that border Yellowstone National Park. So, for his first adventure after graduating in 2008, Joe set off to observe the recently discovered pronghorn antelope migration in western Wyoming.
Actually, ‘antelope’ is a misnomer for the North American pronghorn. They are in a different family than the true antelope like the gazelles and impalas of Africa. Our North American pronghorn evolved at the same time as the now extinct American cheetah and other very fast predators. It’s likely that’s why pronghorn developed such speed. Pronghorn are the fastest land animals in the western hemisphere, running at 60 mph, and are said to be the second fastest animal in the world after the cheetah. But where were the pronghorn going during their migration? For such an amazing animal, no one seemed to be paying much attention to them.
Joe’s plan to spend six months following the herds that summer in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem eventually turned into years. He lived out of his truck with a camera and not much else, driven by curiosity about where the pronghorn were traveling, and what their obstacles were.
Photo by Joe Riis
With Joe’s photography work and research scientists following some animals’ movements with tracking collars, it was discovered that pronghorn were traveling farther than anyone had expected. Some herds walked more than 100 miles in each direction between their summer and winter ranges. At the time, it was called the longest land migration in the continental United States. Not too much later though, some mule deer in western Wyoming were found to be traveling even further, about 150 miles. These routes were mostly invisible to the people living right alongside them. Native Americans knew the migration routes of the past, but these days most people weren’t aware of the natural and manmade obstacles on this long and difficult journey. For example, there used to be eight paths that pronghorn herds would take to their summer range in Yellowstone National Park. Today, development has cut off all but two of those routes.
The herds that Joe tracked travelled from their winter range near Pinedale, Wyoming, to their summer home in Grand Teton National Park. The pronghorn winter where there isn’t much snow so that they are able to find grass and sagebrush to eat. As the snow starts to recede in the spring, the animals begin to move. Females migrate while pregnant, and babies are born at the other end of their journey in their summer range. Following the melting snow, the herd must shimmy under fences, through subdivisions, over highways, across snowfields and fast moving rivers, and avoid predators until they finally arrive in the green summer fields of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
When Joe tried to photograph wildlife on the move, his presence would spook the animals and send them running. Most of the migration images he’d studied were of the backsides of animals as they ran from a photographer on the ground or in a helicopter. It was important for him not to disrupt their journey, but he needed to get close to reveal images of the animals and their dangerous path. So, as camera technology developed, he was able to use motion activated digital cameras. With all he’d learned about the pronghorn migration routes, he mounted cameras at likely spots and came back later to check on them.
The camera traps generated plenty of photos that weren’t great, but when his planning was right and the camera was in a good spot for the wildlife to pass nearby surrounded by a beautiful natural setting, the photos were striking. These were unique images of pronghorn and other animals working hard, swimming a flooded spring river, straining with tongues hanging out on a steep climb, or making their way through deep snow. Normally people don’t get to see such an intimate view of skittish wild animals. When the pronghorn crossed in front of Joe’s carefully placed cameras, the world got to see their challenges and effort up close.
Migration routes are filled with both natural and manmade obstacles. One troubling problem for wildlife on the Wyoming and Colorado plains is the proliferation of petroleum drilling sites. Drilling for oil and natural gas is common where many pronghorn and mule deer winter. Fences and landscape destruction at these sites disrupt ungulate movement and restrict their habitat. Also, the methane pollution produced by extracting oil and natural gas contributes to global warming, another human-made challenge facing wildlife. Pronghorn populations fluctuate based on climate related problems like severe weather, drought, wildfire, and the quality and quantity of plants they can find to eat.
There have been some wins for pronghorn and other wild animals, though. Over time, the photos and tracking collars on animals have told individual pronghorn’s stories as well as the bigger picture. This understanding has resulted in some migration corridors being protected and modified to reduce conflict between animals and our modern world.
Another way to help is to modify fences. Pronghorn usually won’t jump, but instead will scoot under fences. Landowners can help by replacing the bottom wire of a barbed wire fence with a smooth wire and raise it so that it’s at least 18 inches off the ground. This lets the animals pass right through and be on their way.
Photo by Joe Riis
Near Pinedale, Wyoming, there is a narrow piece of land called Trapper’s Point. This is the 6,000 year old migration route of the pronghorn that is now squeezed between two rivers and a housing subdivision. The first fall season that Joe spent at Trapper’s Point was in 2008. As he stood beside Wyoming Highway 191, and sometimes in the middle of the highway taking photos, 800 pronghorn crossed in just a few hours. This is a challenging spot for drivers because they crest the top of a blind hill at 65 mph at exactly the point where animals are trying to cross. Joe was determined to document the problem, and shortly after his risky highway photo sessions, his photographs were in Washington DC at Department of Transportation presentations and discussions. Once the photos highlighted the problem, people began to support wildlife overpasses as a solution.
In 2011 and 2012, two overpasses and many miles of fencing were installed in the area near Pinedale to funnel animals to the safe crossings. During the 5 years before the overpass crossings were built, 700 pronghorn and mule deer were killed while trying to cross a stretch of Highway 191 and nearby Highway 189. After the Trapper’s Point overpass was installed, 2,000 pronghorn and an additional 7,000 big game animals used it in the fall in just 2 1/2 months. This is a major benefit for wildlife and everyone who drives these stretches of highway.
Photo by Joe Riis
In the early days, new digital camera technology helped Joe capture photos and video of wildlife like nothing seen before. Joe’s adventures following the pronghorn over highways and through the wilderness of Wyoming led to further travels with mule deer, elk, and more. What has motivated him is an interest in understanding the realities of wildlife and human interactions, connected landscapes and lives, and telling meaningful visual stories that make a difference. Joe’s images have helped shape policy and understanding around several ungulate species. He has also shared the beauty of the remote Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and its inhabitants through photos and film. It will be a pleasure to see where his camera and sense of adventure take him next.
Photo from the film Elk River
Further Reading:
A Landowner’s Guide to Pronghorn Friendly Fences, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, 4/20
Dayton, Kelsey, Yellowstone Migrations: A photographic cornucopia , WyoFile, 9/15/17
Kauffman, Matthew J., James E. Meacham, Hall Sawyer, Alethea Y. Steingisser, William J. Rudd, and Emilene Ostlind, Wild Migrations: Atlas of Wyoming’s Ungulates, Oregon State University Press, 2018
McKee, Spencer, Colorado Used to be Home to ‘Cheetahs’ - and Their Impact May Still be Seen Today, Out There Colorado, 3/25/22
More Methane, More Problems: Future for Bighorn Sheep and Pronghorns Imperiled, National Wildlife Federation, 12/13/2018
Ostlind, Emiline, The perilous journey of Wyoming’s migrating pronghorn, High Country News, 1/4/12
Perry, Abby, Take a Look at One of the World’s Fastest Animals and Wyoming Icon, University of Wyoming, Barnyards and Backyards, 2017
Riis, Joe, Yellowstone Migrations, Braided River, 2017
Riis, Joe, Joe Riis Prouctions
Scott, Clay, A way to save one of North America’s fastest animals, The World, 11/24/15
Telling the Visual Story of Migrating Pronghorn, National Geographic Case Study
Trapper’s Point Wildlife Overpass Webcam
UW Alumni Named National Geographic Adventurers of the Year, University of Wyoming News, 11/13/2015
WYDOT Highway 191- Trapper’s Point, Contech Engineered Solutions