Funding provided Pronghorn Educational Box to educators/museums around the state. Many museums, science centers, and educators around the State check out hands-on educational materials from the Game and Fish Regional Office and Headquarters. Many of those same places have requested keeping these boxes and indicated that they have a use/need for them more often. Through this grant the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) can now accommodate these requests. Anytime the WGFD can have other educators teaching children and the public about wildlife and our resources in the State it is a huge win for wildlife!
Regional Information and Education Specialists designed this box recently to celebrate the pronghorn. Pronghorn are an iconic Wyoming species. They are a unique animal, related to no others in North America. It is the animal featured on our Department logo and Wyoming holds the world’s largest population of pronghorn. Though they are commonly seen in much of Wyoming, many children and adults do not know about their history, near brush with extinction, management, conservation and unusual biological traits.
The second piece of this grant funded telemetry radio collars to teach youth and adults about how biologists track animal movements and study migration in our State.
Education staff has conducted these programs previously but has been limited to using a collar and receiver when not in use by a biologist. In addition, the equipment is more expensive as well as the batteries that have to be replaced by the company.
These collars have common batteries that staff can replace, and have increased resources and offer programmable features like mortality signals to bolster education. Lessons for students can range from learning about the tools biologists use to lessons on animal migration to ungulate biology.
The WYldlife Fund is dedicated to raising up the next generation of conservationists!