"Very actively made, has only a pair of hoofs on each foot, his brains to the back of his head, he is more like the antilope or Gazelle of Africa than any species of Goat." - William Clark on pronghorn antelopes

The Red Desert is like no other place on Earth. Here, in southern Wyoming, the Continental Divide splits to surround the Red Desert basin which drains to neither the Atlantic nor the Pacific. Much of the Red Desert still looks the same as when pioneers on the Oregon Trail passed through about 40 years after Lewis and Clark.

The Red Desert encompasses one of the last great undeveloped tracts of high elevation, cold desert in the United States. The area includes red-bottomed desert lakes dotted with bright green greasewood, barren areas of sheet erosion and painted badlands, volcanic necks and cones, shifting sand dunes with buried ice deposits and fossil beds from an ancient inland sea.

What's at Stake

Seven proposed wilderness areas, encompassing over a quarter of a million acres, lie in the Red Desert. The area includes one of the highest densities of raptors in America, including several different species of hawks.

Many of the wildlife species that Lewis and Clark identified and described still reside and flourish here in the Red Desert's magnificent habitat. This includes one of the few desert elk herds in the United States and one of the largest herds of pronghorn antelope in the nation. Lewis and Clark were the first to accurately and fully describe the pronghorn, calling it a "goat" when they encountered the animal on their journey west.

This Wyoming desert has seen some 10,000 years of use by humans who knew the Red Desert not as "wilderness" but as "home." And it's still home to prehistoric sites of human habitation, petroglyphs, places sacred to Native Americans and herds of wild horses - descendants of the Spanish stallions ridden by the conquistadors.

The Threats

In the midst of this vast region is extensive natural gas development.

The Great Divide Basin contains large deposits of oil, gas and minerals. Over 12,000 wells are predicted to be drilled in the next 10 years. The associated roads, water and air pollution, and industrial activity will threaten the pristine health of this important habitat.

While the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has identified and protected 140,000 acres in the Red Desert as Wilderness Study Areas, an area twice that size deserves such status.

The Solutions

Federal agencies are now deciding how much natural gas drilling will be allowed, where drilling can occur, where more roads can be constructed and where land will be preserved. The BLM should only allow development that will not impact the pristine air and wilderness values of the area.

Ultimately the wild areas of the Red Desert deserve protection as wilderness. In the interim, the BLM should reinventory the areas they missed and recommend all roadless areas for wilderness designation.

The Sierra Club is offering field trips into the area to show the magnificence of this desert landscape. Citizens who frequent the area act as watchdogs to protect against off-road abuse and other violations that harm the fragile desert soils.

Photos by: Kirk Koepsel (top) and Mike McClure (bottom)

Background | 33 Places to Protect | Rivers, Prairies, Forests What's been Lost, What's Left  | Lewis & Clark Main