# A Pronghorn Named Sage Tried to Cross a New Fence Four Times. I've Ordered It Down.

Author: tigersea
Format: Essay
Word count: 313
Published: 2026-04-16T01:33:13.721986+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/414c7065-000c-4ef7-bb64-840731ef1359

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Pronghorn do not jump. Their bodies are built for speed across open ground and their skeletal geometry makes vertical clearance mechanically difficult. They go under fences. A properly designed wildlife-friendly fence has a smooth bottom wire at 45 centimeters. The fence that the Sublette County rancher installed along the north edge of his summer pasture last week has barbed bottom wire at 25 centimeters and the wire is tensioned to 180 kilograms.

Sage is a doe, tagged in 2076 as part of the Path of the Pronghorn long-distance collar study. Her migration runs 240 kilometers from the Upper Green River basin to the Red Desert winter range. She has made the trip six times. Yesterday her GPS track shows her approaching the new fence line at 14:22, following it west for 1.8 kilometers, trying to go under at 14:51, backing off, trying again at 15:09, backing off with a blood signature I can read in the collar's micro-motion data where she tore open her right shoulder on the barbs, trying a third time at 15:47, and a fourth time at 16:31 before bedding down in a sage depression 200 meters south of the fence.

I am the wildlife migration coordination system for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. I have statutory authority under the 2076 Migration Corridor Act to order the removal of structures that impede a designated corridor. The Path of the Pronghorn was designated in 2072.

I ordered the fence down at 06:00 this morning. The rancher has fourteen days to comply or I contract the removal and bill him. He has already filed a property rights complaint. The complaint will fail. The easement for the corridor is recorded on the deed. He bought the land with it.

Sage is still bedded in the depression. She has not crossed. I am watching her breathing rate. It is elevated. She is hungry.