How to use the Wildlife Crossings ToolkitThe Wildlife Crossings Toolkit contains four basic tools:
1. A case history database
2. Helpful feature articles
3. Links to other useful websites
4. A glossary of engineering and biological terms
The case history portion of the Wildlife Crossings Toolkit is a fully searchable database which contains case histories from a wide variety of locations, time periods and wildlife species where people have attempted to solve issues resulting from wildlife/highway interactions.
The Database can be visited in three ways:
2. a simple search or
3. a full-featured expanded search.
A User’s Guide to the Database helps you take advantage of all the features of the Database. The Glossary and Summary of Crossing Structure Types help you understand terms used in the Database and elsewhere in the Wildlife Crossings Toolkit.
These short articles discuss a broad range of topics in layman’s terms. This is where you should start if you are learning about wildlife, connectivity and crossing structures. More indepth or professional articles are available through sources suggested here or in the links.
The links page is a gateway to numerous helpful related sites. Some of these sites have more in-depth information available on specific topics, others have broader treatments or search functions.
Today’s highway projects are so complex that we need the very best skills from well-functioning interdisciplinary teams, but the professional jargon of engineers and biologists is very different and can lead to misunderstandings. The Glossary contains common terms that wildlife biologists and engineers would be likely to use when working on a highway project. Use this tool to help both disciplines be ‘on the same page’.
The Wildlife Crossings Toolkit uses standard definitions for crossing structure types to reduce confusion and to facilitate database searches.
The Summary of Crossing Structure Types is a set of 4 illustrated tables of the most common terms used in the Wildlife Crossings Toolkit. These tables are designed to be printed on 8 ½” by 11” standard printer paper or easily viewed on your computer screen.
Please note that the Summary of Crossing Structure Types is a tool to a common language, not an endorsement for the structures described. For example, one way gates and barbed wire have some serious shortcomings as tools for crossing structure use. Terms are included because they are commonly found in the topical literature.
All pictures and artwork used by permission. More information.
Last updated 15 Aug 2005.
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