Individuals view highways as a technique to transfer from Level A to Level B, however to the animals that inhabit both aspect of a busy roadway, the lanes are a probably lethal barrier.
Between 2016 and 2023, there have been not less than 613 stories of mountain lions killed by oncoming site visitors, in response to the UC Davis Street Ecology Heart. During the last month there have been two mountain lions discovered lifeless on L.A. County highways: one on the 405 Freeway on Thursday whose explanation for dying continues to be being investigated, and one other on June 15 that was struck by a automobile in Agoura Hills close to an unfinished wildlife crossing over the 101 Freeway.
Different animals vulnerable to changing into roadkill embody deer, coyotes and raccoons.
In an effort to preserve wildlife and rein within the quantity of roadkill, transportation officers and advocates are beginning to construct passageways for wildlife to soundly cross main highways in California.
The most recent challenge, which continues to be beneath environmental overview, is the Freeway 17 Wildlife and Path Crossing Mission within the Santa Cruz Mountains.
The Midpeninsula Regional Open Area District has proposed a pair of passageways throughout the freeway in Los Gatos: an overpass for hikers, bikers and horse riders, and an underpass for mountain lions, deer and different creatures.
The challenge will embody fencing to direct animals to the underpass and deter them from coming into the freeway. It can even have a one-way wildlife escape construction to provide animals that wander onto the freeway a secure technique to exit. The district just lately determined that each crossings will likely be situated north of the Lexington Reservoir.
The challenge, which has been within the works for 10 years, focuses on an space that the UC Davis Street Ecology Heart recognized as one of many state’s high six hotspots for wildlife and site visitors collisions, mentioned Ryan McCauley, a spokesperson for Midpen. The others named by the middle had been Freeway 50 in Eldorado County, Interstate 680 in Contra Costa and Alameda counties, Interstate 280 on the San Francisco Peninsula, Freeway 101 in Marin County and Freeway 49 in Placer and Nevada counties.
McCauley mentioned the mountain lions and different animals that roam both aspect of Freeway 17 want “uninterrupted area” to create their dens, mate and hunt for meals.
This challenge would bridge the hole Freeway 17 has created and merge 30,000 acres of open area, a “essential challenge [that would] make sure the well being of the mountain lions in our space,” McCauley mentioned.
The state of California already has not less than 185 wildlife crossings, in response to the Wildlands Community wildlife crossing database. However freeway crossings have gotten renewed consideration lately, with a number of both in growth or beneath development. The $92-million Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing over the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills, as an illustration, is slated to be accomplished in 2026.
There’s a way of urgency for crossings now as the general public begins to grasp how local weather change is pushing animals to shift their habitats, both to adapt to vegetation modifications or to flee areas affected by wildfires, mentioned Fraser Shilling, director of the Street Ecology Heart. Such shifts, he mentioned, are basic to ecosystem resilience.
In the long run, Neal Sharma of the Wildlife Conservation Community mentioned, “habitats and plant communities in a single a part of the state at present could very effectively not be the identical in many years to come back, and all organisms want to have the ability to discover comfy locations to make their existence.”
A big, extremely trafficked street may “have the impact of a wall and cease these issues from taking part in out,” he mentioned.
Wildlife crossings are only one a part of the reply to the issue of vehicle-animal collisions. Shilling mentioned there are 3 ways for communities to cut back roadkill: Drive much less, decelerate and construct fencing.
“The primary two, most individuals are unwilling to do [unless] they’re in a Nationwide Park and it says, ‘Hey, decelerate for the bears,’” he mentioned.
Crossings assist wildlife, however Shilling argued that fencing actually protects animals and reduces their capability to get on the roadway within the first place.
