Year after year, migratory ungulates must pound their hooves across vast areas of the planet to find food, escape harsh conditions, and breed. The movements are as diverse as the species themselves, which include Mongolian gazelles and saiga in Asia, wildebeest in the Serengeti, guanacos in South America, caribou in the Arctic, and many more.
Ungulates provide most of the prey for the world’s large carnivore and scavenger populations, as well as food and livelihood opportunities for local and Indigenous communities. Their seasonal migrations are necessary for healthy ecosystems and sustaining the animals and people that depend on them. Unfortunately, ungulate migrations are disappearing as people build roads, fences, and other infrastructure that obstruct the pathways that animals use to migrate. Though few migration maps exist today, those that do show that protected areas are typically too small and scattered to protect wide-ranging movements, and so we continue to lose the world's great ungulate migrations, sometimes before we can even document them.
Why we need connected landscapes to save ungulate migrations
Ungulates provide most of the prey for the world’s large carnivore and scavenger populations, as well as food and livelihood opportunities for local and Indigenous communities. Their seasonal migrations are necessary for healthy ecosystems and sustaining the animals and people that depend on them. Unfortunately, ungulate migrations are disappearing as people build roads, fences, and other infrastructure that obstruct the pathways that animals use to migrate. Though few migration maps exist today, those that do show that protected areas are typically too small and scattered to protect wide-ranging movements, and so we continue to lose the world's great ungulate migrations, sometimes before we can even document them.
Why we need connected landscapes to save ungulate migrations