To live, wildlife must travel on a regular and seasonal basis. However, housing, highways, walls, energy infrastructure, and other man-made obstacles continue to fragment the ecosystems that animals depend on. As a result, animals are increasingly struggling to find food, water, shelter, and breeding grounds.
However, the capacity of wildlife to travel might be more critical than ever. More people and construction are coming into conflict with wildlife and their historic environments as the United States' population increases. Climate change is also changing ecosystems dramatically, causing many species to migrate.
The degree to which the environment encourages or impedes animal movement and other ecological processes such as seed dispersal is referred to as habitat connectivity. The National Wildlife Federation is addressing wildlife migration issues by enhancing ecosystem connectivity and creating protected pathways for wildlife on the land, as well as designing conservation strategies to ensure that wildlife around the country can still get where they need to go.
Improving the Movement of Wildlife in the United States
The National Wildlife Federation is working with its allies to pass the Wildlife Corridors Restoration Act, a game-changing piece of legislation that could greatly boost wildlife movement in the United States.
The need for a structured communication network is increasing as habitat is fragmented, eroded, and lost to growth. Better habitat connectivity will enable wildlife to migrate and spread across the country as the seasons change, increasing biodiversity and resilience in degraded habitats, ensuring genetic flow between populations, and ensuring species are better able to adapt to our changing environment. This project is a crucial and long-overdue investment in the long-term health of wildlife ecosystems and ecological processes.
Investment in ecosystem connectivity programs, such as the National Park System and the National Wildlife Refuge System, would help bind protected ecosystems. Improved connectivity would help all animals, from carnivores like the Florida panther to insects like the monarch butterfly, by recognizing prioritized corridors and key pinch points.
Existing and planned wildlife corridors include the following:
The National Wildlife Federation is working with the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, the Colorado Wildlife Federation, and other partners in the Upper Rio Grande Valley to establish federal protections for wildlife habitat connectivity through three national forests (the Carson and Santa Fe in New Mexico, and the Rio Grande in Colorado) and the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. Elk, bighorn sheep, mule deer, pronghorn, lynx, black bear, mountain lions, and the endangered Rio Grande cutthroat trout will all benefit from this corridor.
The Burnham Wildlife Corridor, a 100-acre landscape within Chicago's Lakeshore Park, features prairie and forest habitats native to this region of the Central United States, as well as migrating birds and monarch butterflies. The city's heart is cut through by the corridor. It is mostly used as a stopover for the three million migratory birds that travel through Chicago each year, but it also provides important butterfly habitat.
Mule deer: The Red Desert to Hoback mule deer corridor in Wyoming facilitates the United States' longest mule deer migration.
Pronghorn and greater sage-grouse: The Northern Great Plains, which range from Montana to Canada, are home to the longest migrations of both pronghorn and greater sage-grouse. Collaboration continues through the patchwork of public and working lands to maintain connectivity, taking a holistic approach to conservation.
Use Wildlife Crossings to Strengthen Habitat Connectivity
The National Wildlife Federation not only identifies and prioritizes corridors throughout the landscape, but also promotes infrastructure that supports these efforts. This work entails constructing overpasses and underpasses across highways to prevent mule deer and pronghorn movement, as well as culverts (water-flowing channels underneath infrastructure) to enable turtles and amphibians to safely cross barriers.
Models of Interconnection
The following are some examples of facilities that can be used to create or improve wildlife crossings:
Banff: A series of wildlife crossings across the Trans-Canada Highway in Banff National Park has decreased ungulate-vehicle accidents by around 80%.
Montana: A network of 81 wildlife crossings over and under US Highway 93, along with more than nine miles of fencing, eliminated deer-vehicle accidents by more than 90%.
California mountain lions: The Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing in California will be the world's largest wildlife crossing and a global model for urban wildlife management by providing a protected passage for wildlife near Highway 101.
Florida panthers: In South Florida, the Florida Department of Transportation has built several wildlife underpasses on busy state roads.
Turtles: A culvert was built under Route 44 in Massachusetts to enable spotted turtles to cross a dangerous highway that separated two communities.
Salamanders: Hundreds of amphibians, including blue-spotted salamanders, wood frogs, spring peepers, yellow-spotted salamanders, eastern newts, and four-toed salamanders, have been able to safely cross Vergennes Road thanks to culverts built along the road.
Moose: In Vermont, the Critical Paths Project is determining priority zones for wildlife crossings along the Green Mountain spine.
Mule deer and pronghorn: Over the last decade, the Wyoming Department of Transportation has built networks of crossings near Baggs and Nugget Canyon that have decreased ungulate-vehicle collisions by about 80% and improved habitat access for other wildlife.
The Trapper's Point project, which includes six underpasses and two overpasses near Pinedale, Wyoming, has become famous for minimizing pronghorn and mule deer collisions and preserving the "route of the pronghorn" migration corridor.
