Animal Bridges Save Both Animal and Human Lives

One major problem people can have when driving in areas that are heavily inhabited by animals is that when the two (animal and car) meet suddenly and accidentally, it can end up harming at least one if not both parties. The poor animals often meet with a fatal end, and depending on their size they can cause some serious damage to the car and the people inside that car that hit them. Many people get in car wrecks each year because they collided with a dear that was crossing the road. Those car wrecks can range from not too bad to very serious, and I’m just referring to the wrecks that happen when it is light out. When it gets dark anything goes. Suffice to say the collisions that can happen between animals crossing the road and cars make life more difficult for everyone. Thankfully, some wildlife conservation groups have been working to fix this problem.

After 10 long years of work, Jay Kehne and the group Conservation Northwest have finally constructed what they believe will be the best solution to this problem: man made wildlife bridges and tunnels. Along part of Highway 97 the group has built wildlife underpasses, overpasses, and other crossing structures in strategic areas to keep these collisions between wildlife and cars from happening. They specifically targeted areas where there are migration patterns of groups of animals. The technology isn’t particularly new, having been tried in places like Banff, Canada; Pinedale, Wyoming; and Bend, Oregon, but has proven to work very well in these places that have implemented it. In some of these areas such as Oregon the collisions between wildlife and cars have been reduced by 90 percent since these wildlife crossings have been implemented along major roads. In regards to this project, just by placing these wildlife crossings along 4 miles of highway, experts expect them to reduce collisions by 50 percent, and completing the project over the entire stretch of road could even end almost all vehicle-wildlife crashes. The group is continuing to raise money to build these crossings along more stretches of the highway, as well as hopefully other problematic roads in the future.

Do you think we should be putting these wildlife overpasses and underpasses along more roads throughout the country? Could they benefit more than just wildlife?