Why This Workshop

Interstate highways, roads, railways and other linear infrastructure are pervasive components of most landscapes throughout North America. Direct loss of habitat, indirect behavioral avoidance of otherwise suitable habitat, and collisions with vehicles and trains can result in extensive mortality for big game animals and severely disrupt their movements. Also, across the U.S., wildlife-vehicle collisions pose a serious risk to human safety and result in loss of life and extensive property damage that could be resolved through conservation, management and mitigation actions.

Coordinated data sharing and planning are necessary between transportation and natural resource agencies to integrate transportation mitigation measures with other practices to maintain and restore wildlife connectivity across the west.

Additionally, Secretary of the Interior Zinke signed Secretarial Order 3362 in February 2018, directing all agencies in the Department to work toward better planning, research and conservation of priority big game habitats in western states that include migration corridors, stopover habitat and winter range. As part of this Order, each western state was asked to and has submitted their top 3-5 priorities for big game migration corridor conservation along with associated threats or risks. Every state’s submitted priorities included the challenge of highways that bisect wildlife movement linkages, and either create impermeable barriers to movement and/or pose extensive risk for animals and people.