I-40 and other areas present hazards that can be addressed.
Car and critter collisions are increasing along the stretch of Interstate 40 in the mountains of East Tennessee and western North Carolina, where more than 26,000 vehicles travel daily through one of the richest habitats for bear, deer and elk in the region. Biologists, transportation officials, nonprofits and other stakeholders have teamed up to monitor wildlife movement near the highway to determine where they might establish protective crossings at key points. “Bears do really well with underpasses, as do bobcats,” Jeff Hunter with the National Parks Conservation Association says in a recent article in Blue Ridge Outdoors. “White tailed deer will use culverts and underpasses if they are large enough. Elk, not so much. Elk like overpasses.”
The effort will feed into a much broader initiative to connect multiple wildlife corridors from Florida to Quebec due to climate change. “As it continues to get warmer, many species are going to want to migrate northward in this hemisphere and uphill to higher elevations,” says Ron Sutherland with Wildlands Network. “So, keeping movement pathways open is how we let not just animals, but plants migrate to keep up with their acceptable climate conditions.” According to The Nature Conservancy, the wildlands of Appalachia provide the most important wildlife migration route in the country.
maps.tnc.org/migrations-in-motion; wildlandsnetwork.org
The story above appears in our September/October 2019 issue. For more subscribe today or log in to the digital edition with your active digital subscription. Thank you for your support!
