Who created the Wildlife Crossings Toolkit?

The Wildlife Crossings Toolkit is a combined effort and partnership of several entities who all felt the need for a concise but thorough, one-stop shopping source of information on wildlife and highway interaction issues.   

USDA Forest Service:
San Dimas Technology and Development Center

The USDA Forest Service is a Federal agency that manages over 192 million acres of public lands in national forests and grasslands. The USDA Forest Service’s mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The San Dimas Technology and Development Center is a unit of the USDA Forest Service whose primary mission is to create tools and processes for use in the field units of the Forest Service. The Wildlife Crossings Toolkit is a project proposed and initiated by the USDA Forest Service’s San Dimas Technology and Development Center.   

Funding for the Toolkit project came from a partnership with the USDA Forest Service and the Federal Lands Highway’s Coordinated Federal Lands Highway Technology Implementation Program (CTIP) . The CTIP pools funds from the USDA Forest Service, US DOT Federal Highway Administration, USDI National Park Service, USDI Bureau of Indian Affairs and USDI Fish and Wildlife Service. Individuals directly responsible for the content and implementation are Sandra Jacobson, wildlife biologist, Randall Raeder, biological technician, and Jim Bassel, civil engineer. Our illustrator is Paul Karr, retired Forest Service civil engineer. Contact us.

Utah State University:
Jack H. Berryman Institute

Utah State University welcomes nearly 22,000 students each year to its main campus in Logan and to time-enhanced learning centers throughout the state. Utah’s land-grant institution has a charter that has led to groundbreaking research and global dissemination of those findings. The Jack H. Berryman Institute takes a multidisciplinary approach to speed the discovery and development of innovative methods to solve human/wildlife conflicts. Utah State University’s Jack H. Berryman Institute is an integral part of the Wildlife Crossings Toolkit. They are providing the Internet expertise and server to take the concept of the Toolkit into a working reality. USU is a co-partner with the USDA Forest Service in updating and maintaining the website. Project manager is Terry Messmer, assistant professor in the College of Natural Resources Department of Forest, Range, and Wildlife Sciences. Website developer and manager is Jamey Anderson, USU webmaster for the College of Natural Resources. Terry Messmer, Jamey Anderson and the College of Natural Resources at Utah State University are generously supported by the S.J. and Jessie E. Quinney Foundation.

Montana State University-Bozeman:
Western Transportation Institute

The Western Transportation Institute is a University Transportation Center based at Montana State University-Bozeman . One of Montana State University-Bozeman’s missions is to serve the people and communities of Montana by sharing their expertise and collaborating with others to improve the lives and prosperity of Montanans. WTI’s mission is to advance rural transportation through education and research with a focus on rural applications of advanced technology, transportation system wildlife interactions, weather and winter mobility and highway infrastructure design and maintenance. Their Artemis database has been graciously combined with the Wildlife Crossings Toolkit Database. WTI is a partner in populating the Database through Pat McGowan, research engineer.

Federal Highway Administration

The US Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration strives to meet the public's need for improved access and for safe, comfortable, convenient, and economical movement of people and goods; be an environmentally conscious organization that practices active leadership in working with their partners to protect and enhance the natural and human environment; and improve surface transportation safety through a coordinated effort to reduce fatalities, injuries, property damage, and hazardous material spills. The vision of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is to create the best transportation system in the world for the American people through proactive leadership, innovation, and excellence in service.

The FHWA has been a financially generous supporter of the Wildlife Crossings Toolkit since its conception. The FHWA has an excellent primer on wildlife crossings in the Critter Crossings, and its success led to a hunger for a more detailed, searchable database that has found its completion in the Wildlife Crossings Toolkit. In 2003, the FHWA is funding the addition of a major section on European solutions to highway/wildlife interactions based on the findings of a ‘SCAN’ tour in 2002. Principle leadership on this aspect of the Toolkit project is from Mary Gray, environmental specialist, Washington Division FHWA.

North Carolina State University:
Center for Transportation and the Environment

The Center for Transportation and the Environment, a USDOT university transportation center located at North Carolina State University, provides a critical function in the world of highways and their effects on the environment. Their ‘Wildlife, Fisheries, and Transportation Web Gateway’ provides a motherlode of information, including a searchable bibliography of pertinent works on transportation and the environment, a roster of research work in progress, and the electronic repository for the proceedings of all of the International Conferences on Transportation and the Environment (ICOET). CTE is the Wildlife Crossings Toolkit’s primary gateway, and many links can be found there to other useful tools.

Partnership Opportunities

A dynamic webpage such as this Wildlife Crossings Toolkit requires a tremendous amount of maintenance to keep the database current, add useful feature articles and links, and manage the computer systems. The Wildlife Crossings Toolkit will be a success in direct proportion to the involvement of its users. We need your help in keeping the Database accurate, complete and current. If your agency or organization would like to become a partner in the Wildlife Crossings Toolkit, please contact us.

 

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All pictures and artwork used by permission. More information.

Last updated 18 Aug 2005.

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