Short Helpful Articles
This page provides a number of short articles to help plan a wildlife-friendly highway project. Here you will find articles on the basics of wildlife issues on highway projects, the process of highway planning, and special tools to reduce wildlife/highway impacts.
The articles were selected to provide an overview of wildlife/highway interactions. For those familiar with the basics, information is available online as bibliographies, referred literature and proceedings.
The Links section of the Wildlife Crossings Toolkit contains a number of other helpful resources. If you don’t find what you need in this section, you may find it from one of the other sources. The Wildlife Crossings Toolkit developers attempted to compile the basics people need to plan wildlife-friendly highways without duplicating other available information.
Several of these documents are presented in PDF format. You can get Adobe's free Acrobat Reader by clicking on the button.
Clicking on the colored text below will take you to a summary of the article. Clicking on the book
or link
icons will allow you to go straight to the article or website referenced.
Articles are organized in three categories:
Context: Wildlife considerations on highway projects.
• Connectivity
• When Barriers to Connectivity Benefit Ecological
Integrity
• Forest Roads: A Synthesis of Scientific Information
• Critter Connections
• Critter Crossings
• Overview of Transportation Impacts on Wildlife Movement and Populations
• A Strategy for Mitigating Highway Impacts on Wildlife
• The International Conferences on Wildlife
and the Environment (ICOWET and ICOET)
• The Wildlife Society’s 2000 Annual Meeting
• Wildlife/Vehicle Collision Factors
• Cost Of Wildlife-Related Motor Vehicle Accidents
Process: The highway project planning process and legal considerations.• USDA Forest Service’s Roads Analysis Process
• Innovative Approaches to Transportation
• Contract Specification Examples for the Tonto National Forest
• The Seven Dwarfs of Highway Project Planning
• Legal Authorities on Issues Affecting Wildlife and
Highways
Special Tools: Tools or information to reduce highway impacts to wildlife.
• The Simplified Deer Underpass
• Using Wildlife Behavior to Design Effective Crossing Structures
• Roads/Riparian Restoration Field Guide
• Aquatic Organism Passage at Road/Stream Crossings
• Fish XingQuotable Quotes: Observations on wildlife/highway interactions.
Context
The Wildlife Crossings Toolkit was developed for professional wildlife biologists and engineers faced with planning a wildlife-friendly highway project. Ideally, the planning process begins with an understanding of the importance and priority of the highway in a broadscale connectivity analysis. Although it is still rare that this step is fully accomplished, the Toolkit developers assumed it was completed and the planners were ready to move on to site-specific decisions such as what type of crossing structure is needed.
For highway project planners who need an introduction to the concepts of connectivity and why it is important to wildlife, the Wildlife Crossings Toolkit provides a brief introduction to this huge, complex topic.
This article, written for non-biologists, begins with a summary explanation of why we should be concerned about maintaining connectivity in wildlife populations. Biologists will appreciate the concise explanation of complex concepts in this short article too. By Kevin McKelvey, research wildlife biologist at the USDA Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station.
When Barriers to Connectivity Benefit Ecological Integrity
This article continues the discussion on connectivity above with some special cases where barriers may be beneficial.
Forest Roads: A Synthesis of Scientific Information
This excellent document provides a detailed overview of road-related environmental issues in National Forests. The report identifies linkages between processes and effects that suggest both potential compatible uses and potential problems and risks. The report includes issues on low to high volume roads, but the emphasis is on lower volume roads.
http://www.fs.fed.us/eng/road_mgt/science.pdfThis new website developed by the USDA Forest Service complements the FHWA’s Critter Crossings by looking at the other side of wildlife crossing structures, i.e., the importance of connectivity and some of the basic principles to consider. We will provide a link to this site when it is constructed.
Critter Crossings is an excellent primer on crossing structures and some of the success stories around the world. Critter Crossings can be seen at the FHWA’s website or it can be obtained from the FHWA as a glossy brochure. The Wildlife Crossings Toolkit Database provides more information for most of the examples listed in the Critter Crossings brochure. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/wildlifecrossings/
Overview of Transportation Impacts on Wildlife Movement and Populations
and
A Strategy for Mitigating Highway Impacts on WildlifeScott Jackson is program director for the University of Massachusetts Extension Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation Program. His Overview Of Transportation Impacts On Wildlife Movement And Populations neatly summarizes why biologists are concerned about highways and the impact they can have on wildlife. Jackson’s Strategy for Mitigating Highway Impacts on Wildlife provides a cogent strategy on what land managers and highway planners can do to minimize highway impacts on wildlife. Note that Jackson’s terminology for crossing structures varies from the Wildlife Crossings Toolkit, but can be generally inferred from context. Used with permission.
The International Conferences on Wildlife Ecology and Transportation (ICOWET and ICOET)
Four conferences on wildlife ecology and transportation have been held since 1996. The conferences and their proceedings are the single best way to become immersed in the issues and solutions of wildlife and highway interactions. The proceedings of the 1996, 1998, and 1999 ICOWET conferences are available on a single CD, and a limited number of printed copies are also available. To request either the CD or printed copies, please contact:
David L. Zeigler
FDOT-EMO-MS37, 605 Suwannee St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0450
Phone (850) 922-7209; FAX (850) 922-7217The proceedings of the 2001 ICOET are available online or in CD format through CTE’s website. http://itre.ncsu.edu/cte/ICOET/ICOET2001.html
The next ICOET is scheduled for August 24-29, 2003 in Lake Placid, New York.The Wildlife Society’s 2000 Annual Meeting
The Wildlife Society held a special seminar on wildlife and transportation at its 2000 Annual Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. Proceedings of the seminar, called Wildlife and Highways: Seeking Solutions to an Ecologic and Socio-Economic Dilemma, are posted on the Jack H. Berryman Institute’s website
http://www.berrymaninstitute.org/
PSD%27s%20and%20PDF%27s/
wildlife%20and%20highways.PDF
Wildlife/Vehicle Collision Factors
Leonard Sielecki, British Columbia Ministry of Transportation, created this simple table of factors to be considered when analyzing wildlife/vehicle collisions. Although the table is simple, the breadth of factors shows why it is difficult to solve problems caused by wildlife/highway interactions. Used by permission from the Wildlife Accident Reporting System, 2000 Annual Report. (British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Highways, Environmental Services Section).
Cost Of Wildlife-Related Motor Vehicle Accidents (PDF)This article, from the Wildlife Accident Reporting System, 2000 Annual Report. (British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Highways, Environmental Services Section) discusses the cost of wildlife/vehicle collisions. This analysis includes the obvious property damage and human injuries, as well as the cost of accident clean-up and the loss of the value of the animals in hunting revenue. This easy to understand analysis shows how it can be economically prudent to reduce wildlife/vehicle collisions.
Process
USDA Forest Service’s Roads Analysis Process
The USDA Forest Service Roads Analysis Process is designed to evaluate all roads on national forest system lands. This specific process is covered in detail in this document. http://www.fs.fed.us/eng/road_mgt/
Innovative Approaches to Transportation (PDF)
This general technical report by the USDA Forest Service’s San Dimas Technology and Development Center is targeted towards transportation and highway project planning from the Forest Service’s perspective. It gives an excellent overview of the general planning process, including how Federal Aid Highway projects differ from Public Lands Highway projects. Other features include descriptions of funding sources available for mitigation or other projects associated with highways crossing National Forest System lands, and several case histories of successful use of highway-related funds.
Legal Authorities on Issues Affecting Wildlife and Highways
The Wildlife Crossings Toolkit suggests three summaries of the legal authorities that federal land managers are obligated to uphold on highway and wildlife issues.
The first document summarizes the major legal and policy authorities that directs the USDA Forest Service on issues affecting wildlife. Engineers will find this short document helpful in understanding the direction that biologists follow in analyzing projects and developing mitigation. Summarized by Patricia Garvey-Darda, wildlife biologist on the Cle Elum Ranger District, Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. In addition to the authorities listed, note that the Endangered Species Act of 1973 is an extremely important law that affects Forest Service units with federally listed species.
Biologists and engineers may also find the Defenders of Wildlife Habitat and Highways Campaign Guide to Transportation and Law very helpful in outlining the major authorities that agencies must follow on highway issues. This guide includes summaries of important laws including the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act.
Don't neglect the FHWA website for other important information, including the important Memorandum of Understanding between the FHWA and USDA Forest Service. The FHWA website has a concise, useful table summarizing important points of environmental legislation affecting transportation at: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/env_sum.htm
Contract Specification Examples for the Tonto National Forest
The widening of Arizona SR 260 from Payson to Showlow from two to four lanes required a considerable amount of attention to resource protection from the Tonto National Forest. Three documents on the mitigation measures and contract specifications used may help other resource specialists on highway projects to more readily formulate their site-specific contract specifications. These examples are tied to the Arizona Department of Transportation’s parent specification book. The first document is the entire 279-page Christopher Creek Contract Specifications; The second document extracts the most pertinent resource protection clauses, including resources other than wildlife (Christopher Creek Resource Protection Contract Clauses. This document is also large: 117 pages. The third document is a summary of the Christopher Creek Mitigation Measures Addendum, which includes several clauses specific to wildlife protection.
The Seven Dwarfs of Highway Project Planning
The highway planning process includes following all applicable laws and regulations. Terry J. Brennan, Highway Program Leader for the Tonto National Forest in Arizona has identified seven major issues in highway projects that are frequently left out of the planning process. Brennan calls these issues the ‘Seven Dwarfs’ of Highway Project Planning. This short article explains how to avoid the pitfalls of ignoring these ‘Dwarfs’.
Special Tools
This article attempts to provide answers to the most commonly asked question of a wildlife biologist working on highway issues: What is the minimum size of an underpass for deer? Unfortunately, as in most other natural resource issues, it’s not simple to provide an answer because qualifiers abound in this field. This article summarizes some of the basic features necessary to be successful in a wide range of applications for mule or white-tailed deer, along with some suggestions to make a structure that does more than the minimum. Readers are urged to seek further information in the Wildlife Crossings Toolkit Database.
Using Wildlife Behavior to Design Effective Crossing Structures
This short article illustrates how the most effective crossing structures are those that fit the behavior of the target species. Further, some types of structures work for almost all species and could be considered ‘ecological structures’. Written with engineers in mind, but biologists can use the concepts to design effective crossing structures based on their knowledge of local wildlife behavior.
The USRoads/Riparian Restoration Field Guide
The USDA Forest Service's San Dimas Technology and Development Center has developed a Field Guide of Management Techniques for Restoring Roaded Riparian Areas. The online version of the Field Guide is now available at http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_gtr102.html
A spiral-bound field-hardy book will be available soon. The Roads Riparian Restoration Team is an interagency, interdisciplinary team of resource specialists who have developed several training products for agencies to use.
Aquatic Organism Passage at Road/Stream Crossings
The USDA Forest Service’s San Dimas Technology and Development Center is leading a project entitled ‘Aquatic Organism Passage at Road/Stream Crossings’ designed to maintain or restore stream form and biologic, hydrologic and geomorphic function at, upstream and down-stream of road-stream crossings. Products from this project are expected in the next few months.
A short summary report entitled The Potential Impact of Road-Stream Crossings (Culverts) on the Upstream Passage of Aquatic Macroinvertebrates Summary Report gives some excellent information in 15 pages on the issues surrounding culverts and macroinvertebrates. This report was created by the Xerces Society on contract with the USDA Forest Service at San Dimas Technology and Development Center. http://www.xerces.org/articles/Culvert%20Report.PDF
This well-received tool is intended to assist engineers, hydrologists, and fish biologists in the design and evaluation of culverts for fish passage. The FishXing program was developed by a team including the USDA Forest Service (San Dimas Technology and Development Center and the Six Rivers National Forest), Humboldt State University, the Federal Highway Administration and the Americorps Watershed Stewards Project. This tool can be used where wildlife issues are not the major consideration. While FishXing is designed for fish biologists, engineers and hydrologists, many fish passage analyses would beneficially include wildlife biologists to ensure that wildlife passage issues and opportunities are not missed. http://www.stream.fs.fed.us/fishxing/
Quotable Quotes
“The presence of railroads and motorways must be seen as a fact that now cannot be changed. So the only option left is to seek ways to diminish the isolating effect these roads have on animal populations. It is possible to build split-level passages across motorways and railroads, to relieve the traffic intensity or to take speed-reducing measures…In the case of motorways of major importance, however, only the building of passages is realistic.”
Berris, L. 1997. The importance of the ecoduct at Terlet for migrating mammals. 1997. pp. 418-420 IN K. Canters (ed.) Habitat Fragmentation & Infrastructure, Proceedings of the International Conference on Habitat Fragmentation, Infrastructure and the Role of Ecological Engineering. Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, Delft, the Netherlands.
All pictures and artwork used by permission. More information.
Last updated 15 Aug 2005.
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