When an oil and gas company bid $19 per acre to drill a pinchpoint where the Sublette Pronghorn Herd migrates across the New Fork River, the 2023 lease sale turned into one of the largest fights in Wyoming wildlife circles.

At the time, pronghorn were recovering from a devastating winter and a long delay in the state designating the famous migration route left the river crossing bottleneck vulnerable to drilling and disruption. Adjacent ranchland used by the fleet-footed ungulates, meanwhile, was equally at risk: The state’s policy, permissive of development, has no teeth on private land.

Wildlife advocates pulled out all the stops to safeguard the ancient crossing, even unsuccessfully bidding on a state oil and gas lease — a move that led to a change in state law, prohibiting them from trying it again.

Three short years later, almost all of the acreage where New Fork-crossing pronghorn pass through the bottleneck has been protected.…