page_title: Red Desert (Wyoming)
section_title: Plant and wildlife
hierarchical_section_title: Red Desert (Wyoming) / Geography / Plant and wildlife
caption_attribution_description: English: Wild horse. Red Desert (Wyoming)
context_page_description: The Red Desert is a high altitude desert and sagebrush steppe located in south central Wyoming, comprising approximately 9,320 square miles. Among the natural features in the Red Desert region are the Great Divide Basin, a unique endorheic drainage basin formed by a division in the Continental Divide, and the Killpecker Sand Dunes, the largest living dune system in the United States. In the 19th century, the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails crossed the Continental Divide at South Pass, just north of the Red Desert. Today, busy Interstate 80 bisects the desert's southern region while gas field roads cross the desert.
  The majority of the Red Desert is public land managed by the Rock Springs and Rawlins field offices of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The region is rich in oil, natural gas, uranium, and coal. An estimated 84% of the Red Desert has been "industrialized" by oil and gas drilling or by mining operations and associated roads.
  The Red Desert supports an abundance of wildlife, despite its scarcity of water and vegetation. The largest migratory herd of pronghorn in the lower 48 states and a rare desert elk herd, said to be the world's largest, live in the desert.
context_section_description: At first glance the Red Desert's largely dry, barren landscape seems an unlikely location for some 350 wildlife species and more than 1,000 plant species. The sagebrush steppe and bunchgrass habitat support 40,000 to 50,000 pronghorn antelope, the largest migratory herd in the lower forty-eight states, mule deer and the world's largest desert elk herd.
  What the desert lacks in concentrated animal habitat, it makes up in expanse. The Red Desert is home to the largest unfenced area in the continental United States. Nearly three-quarters of the area is covered by sagebrush grassland.
  Sagebrush is a critical habitat for a variety of wildlife ranging from pronghorn which browse it year round to small insects. However, habitat is constrained by oil and gas roads along with drilling and mining. Sagebrush also provides cover for animals such as elk and the pygmy rabbit. Elk depend upon tall brush near Steamboat Mountain for shelter during spring calving season and elsewhere for shade during the heat of summer. Yet the broader impact of sagebrush upon the ecology is its function as a living snow fence. Windblown snow builds up on the lee side of the brush during winter. This effectively stores moisture that is released into the soil in late spring and early summer.
  The result of the Red Desert's unique ecology is that wildlife is varied. Predators such as coyotes and the occasional mountain lion, swift fox, and kit fox are attracted by the area's mammals for feed. Pocket gophers, badgers, sage grouse, sage sparrows, and the sage thrasher are associated with the sagebrush habitat. The Red Desert is home to a range of burrowing animals. The white-tailed prairie dog, Great Basin spadefoot toad, tiger salamander, pygmy rabbits, and sagebrush lizards all go underground for protection from the desert's extreme weather and predators. Similarly, the burrowing owl nests and roosts underground, typically in burrows dug by prairie dogs. Migratory summer birds such as the white-faced ibis and white pelican are found at snow-melt ponds on the desert floor and at temporal wetlands.
  High above the desert floor, the Ferris Mountains and Green Mountains rim the Red Desert to the northeast. The mountains' boreal environment reaches as high as 10,037 feet (3,059 m), in the case of Ferris Peak, and supports snowshoe hares, red squirrels, and pockets of big horn sheep. The high elevation with its cooler summer range attracts elk and mule deer. Prairie falcons, northern harriers and other raptors soar along mountain ridges and canyon rims looking for feed such as migratory mountain plovers, a small ground bird.
  The mountain plover is one of three species protected by the Endangered Species Act present in the Red Desert. The bald eagle and the black-footed ferret are also listed. However, the bald eagle is seldom seen in the desert because of the lack of streams or lakes with accompanying fish. Black-footed ferrets, which feed upon prairie dogs, are also rare.
caption: Unbranded and unclaimed horses on public lands in the Red Desert are protected by the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.
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