Project Synopsis:
This 2-year project will replace 4 strand barbed wire fence with 3 or 4 pole buck rail fence or 3 strand barbed wire with a top wooden rail at critical sections of the boundary of Fossil Butte National Monument (FOBU) (8,198 acres). FOBU's current fence is constructed using 4 strands of barbed and barbless wire on steel t-posts. A good share of it does not meet the standards recommended for wildlife friendly fence. This project would correct this deficiency in many of the critical areas where wildlife cross the monument boundary.
Fossil Butte is within Wyoming's core sagegrouse area, contains winter range for elk and summer range for pronghorn and mule deer. No grazing is permitted within the monument making it an island within cattle and sheep-grazed rangeland.
Providing a wildlife friendly fence will assist the deer, elk and pronghorn to move into and out of the monument without the danger of getting hung up in a fence.
Funding will be used to supplement curent maintenance funding for fencing allowing FOBU to replace rather than just repair the current barbed wire fence. Seasonal laborer will be hired to replace the fence during the months of May through August.
