The race to understand the threats to wildlife from the energy transition

From a bluff overlooking a sun-baked valley near Farmington, New Mexico, Aaron Facka and Michael Dax watched a black helicopter rise, rumbling loudly, flying low over the landscape. Inside, three men searched the grasslands for white-spotted pronghorns, antelope-like creatures that inhabit the western plains of North America.

It was early March, clear and warm, but Facka and Dax, who work for Wildlands Network, a nonprofit environmental organization, were nervous. The men in the helicopter worked for a company that specialized in catching wild animals for biological research. Each time he spotted a pronghorn, the pilot flew close enough for his buddy to fire his gun, which released the net and trapped the animal so it could be fitted with a GPS collar. Collars provide data on herd movements, habitat use and population numbers, but the stress of trapping puts pronghorns at risk of death from overexertion or “capture myopathy.”

“There is an unknown mortality factor with fishing and obviously that is not something we want,” Facka said.

The operation sparked a new study by the Wildlands Network to assess how pronghorns and other wildlife respond to utility-scale solar projects and discuss ways to mitigate their impacts. Solar energy development is growing rapidly in the Four Corners region and across the West. A recent study found that up to a third of potential development could overlap with wildlife migration corridors. Facka, senior western wildlife biologist for the Wildlands Network and the brainchild of the study, hopes the data will help pronghorn survive the energy transition.

In the valley below, workers were installing thousands of solar panels for the 1,100-acre San Juan Solar and Storage Project, located just a few miles from the closed San Juan Generating Station coal-fired plant. The 2019 New Mexico Energy Transition Act set a goal of generating 50% renewable energy by 2030, and the abundance of sunshine, dry climate and existing transmission lines make the area ideal for solar development. In every direction Dax pointed out, there were proposals to use solar energy on a larger utility scale. However, there is almost no data on its impact on large mammals.

FACKA She grew up Kirtland, New Mexico, a small town west of Farmington in the heart of the Four Corners. After years of working elsewhere as a wildlife biologist, he returned home to work for the Wildlands Network. Growing up, he was always drawn to pronghorns, which Dax says “look a bit like aliens,” with males sporting black chin stripes and their namesake’s distinctive horns. The pronghorn can run at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour, making it the second fastest land animal on earth and famous for having the longest land migration in the continental United States.

“There is an unknown mortality factor with fishing and obviously that is not something we want.”

Of particular concern to Facka was how little scientists know about the Four Corners pronghorn population and their range. The New Mexico Game and Fish Department has not prioritized pronghorn research here, in part because the area is not a hunting destination. Jurisdictional boundaries are also an issue; the area is composed of state and federal parcels and tribal lands, and both the Navajo Nation and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe lack the resources to conduct large-scale research.

Dax was sure of one thing: Pronghorn numbers were declining throughout New Mexico, thanks in part to climate change-related drought. One study found that nine of 18 pronghorn populations studied in the Southwest would be extinct or near extinction by 2050. There were other threats, too: Pronghorns have trouble jumping over fences and other barriers, making it harder for them to cope with the challenges of a shrinking habitat .

Shortly after Fack began working at Wildlands Network in 2021, the San Juan plant closed. As plans emerged for large-scale solar development, Facka saw an opportunity to help developers protect local wildlife from the resulting environmental stress.

“We cannot make the same mistakes over and over again with our policies,” he said. “I just felt like we were doing this by saying, ‘We’ll think about it later; all that matters is that we get green energy.”

BELOW THE BLUE where Dax and Facka stood, a gleaming sea of black panels stretched out across the valley. The San Juan solar project occupies a large portion of prime local pronghorn habitat, Dax said. He noticed a clump of trees growing along the arroyo that ran through the center of the sunfield where the pronghorn once rested in the shade.

Although the project was only two-thirds complete, Dax expressed shock at its size, as well as the scope of the solar development planned in an area that is already dotted with numerous oil and gas wells. “A lot of work went into this place,” he mused.

The Four Corners Region is a patchwork of federal, state and tribal lands. Because many projects fall under different jurisdictions, regulators have no way of taking into account their cumulative impacts. (For example, the San Juan project is on private land). There are also no standardized methods for taking into account the needs of wildlife when planning projects or mitigating environmental impacts.

“We cannot make the same mistakes over and over again with our policies. I just felt like we were doing it by saying, “We’ll think about it later; all that matters is that we get green energy.”

Currently, only one other study has examined the effects of solar energy on pronghorn. It has been determined that once construction is completed, pronghorns in southwestern Wyoming can no longer migrate through known areas.

“We are in a sprint phase” of solar energy development, Dax said. “And yet we’re still trying to figure out the best way to do it.”

Thanks to a $1.7 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Solar Technologies, Dax and Facka have prepared a study they hope will provide some answers. Each collared pronghorn will transmit a GPS point every hour for the next two and a half years, showing how and where the animals are moving and whether development is affecting their movement patterns and overall health.

This information would prove particularly important 100 miles south, on the Navajo Nation in eastern Arizona, where the team was scheduled to round up an additional 30 pronghorns in a second study area the next day. The development of utility-scale solar PV in tribal areas has been slow, but the country has received many project applications over the past decade.

Robust pronghorn herds were once an important part of Navajo ceremonies and the hunting lifestyle. Jessica Fort is the only wildlife biologist on the entire Navajo Nation, which covers 18 million acres – the size of West Virginia. Fort began GPS tracking several herds on the New Lands Branch of the Navajo Nation in February of this year. Previously, the only data she had been able to obtain came from annual aerial surveys, which gave her little more than a rough idea of the starting number of animals.

“What do we tell the solar company to do to mitigate the impact on animals?” Fort said. “We don’t really know because we don’t know how their actions affect the animals’ movements.”

Fort hopes this study will help future solar investments reduce their negative impacts on pronghorns and other big game, perhaps by preserving transportation corridors between projects and limiting development in some areas.

The nearby Ute Mountain Ute Tribe faces similar challenges, according to Farley Ketchum, one of the tribe’s two wildlife biologists and an enrolled tribal member. Construction of a proposed 575,000-acre reserve solar farm planned by international renewable energy company Canigou Group is expected to begin later this year, supporting more than 500 local jobs. “This is going to be huge,” Ketchum said. But he worries it will reduce pronghorn habitat and increase competition for limited water resources. “I run my cattle there and I don’t see many pronghorns,” he said.

JUST BEFORE NOON, Facka received a text message from a scientist from his team. “Guys, we have mortality.”

Facka hurried to his truck while Dax and I remained on the bluff. The death was a reminder of the pronghorn’s defenselessness. By 2050, the United States could generate as much as 45% of its electricity using solar energy, possibly converting more than 5,000 square miles to large-scale solar energy facilities. Dax emphasized that he and Facka were not against the change.

“We want to make sure this is data-driven and done in a way that we’re not simply trading climate impacts for habitat impacts,” he said.

On the way back to the car, Dax and I scanned the roadside for pronghorn. So far I saw only one speck of white, barely visible against the distant brown hill. Then, on the dirt road that runs through the middle of the San Juan Solar project, we noticed three people casually walking on the grass. Behind them, sunlight twinkled on the black panels.

“The prevailing view is that renewable energy is the answer,” Dax said. “And that may be the answer, but it’s still energy development, it’s still landscape development. Whether it’s housing development, oil and gas, or renewable energy, we need to make sure that for most of these issues there is research to say, “OK, this is how we do it best.”

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This article appeared in the June 2024 print issue of the magazine under the headline “Pronghorn among the panels.“