JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation and Jackson Hole EcoTour Adventures partnered last month to assist Grand Teton National Park in removing a stretch of obsolete wire fence.
Volunteers with JHWF and EcoTour Adventures showed up on May 17 to help the GTNP vegetation crew take down nearly a mile of ‘exclusionary fencing,’ previously installed near Mormon Row as part of GTNP’s revegetation efforts in the Kelly hayfields.
For many years, this fence served a positive purpose. It was installed to prevent grazing animals (bison, elk, etc) from damaging recently-planted native vegetation, which was seeded as part of the Park’s work to restore these hayfields to how they would have looked prior to western colonization.
The decades-long restoration process, a transition from agricultural fields to natural grasses, sedges, and sagebrush, will ultimately benefit wildlife as native forage is returned to the area.
With the vegetation is now fully healthy, the exclusionary fencing can come down, and bison and elk are once again free to graze the landscape naturally, just as they’ve been doing for thousands of years.
