From culverts to high bridges, wildlife crossings are an animal rescue mission of their own. Here’s how $110 million in federal funding is about to retrofit highways across 17 states in the United States to curtail roadkill tragedies—and protect our wildlife on its way to new pastures.
No-one intends to hit a moose, squirrel, or even a frog while driving 60 miles per hour—and yet roadkill is commonplace with one million wildlife-vehicle collisions annually in the United States. The result is a staggering cost of USD$8 billion a year in vehicle towing and repairs, removal of animal carcasses, and medical costs, not to mention 26,000 human injuries and 200 deaths.
It’s hardly surprising. Most highways were built without any concern for how development erodes and splits wildlife habitat; as a result, big and small critters are crisscrossing perilous roads on a daily basis just to maintain their usual food, shelter, and migration patterns.
It wasn’t until decades after America’s first paved highways were built that engineers even started to consider keeping animals off these roadways. The solution? Funneling the animals to a human-built crossing corridor that mimics their natural environments. The first wildlife bridge built in the United States was in Utah in 1975, but there were still only a handful by the 1980s.
Thankfully, things have changed—today, there are over a thousand dedicated wildlife crossings around the US.
I’ve road-tripped around America 40+ times, and I remember the first time I saw a wildlife overpass. I didn’t know what I was looking at, but after I hopped on the Internet, I discovered a literal rabbit hole of wildlife crossings. Whether it’s a six-inch duct to allow reptiles and amphibians to pass under a road on their annual migration to a wetland or a 200-foot bridge over 10 lanes of a freeway for bigger game, the goal is the same.
Since that day, I’ve been committed to raising awareness about the topic through the articles I write. If you’ve driven in areas where wildlife roams, you might have noticed various protection measures already, such as warning signs, roadside fences, mirrors, and even the occasional overpass. Well, you’re about to see more after the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 allocated $350 million in grant funding for the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program under the Federal Highway Administration.
Overpasses appropriate for larger animals, such as deer, elk, and bears, typically get the most attention in the media—and unsurprisingly, carry the highest price tag, upwards of $6 million.
The rations will roll out annually through fiscal year 2026. For the first round in 2023, the administration received 67 applications from state departments of transportation, regional transportation authorities, Indigenous communities, and other agencies. In December 2023, the federal government awarded $109.6 million in grant funding to 19 recipients across 17 states.
The awards range from $216,250 awarded to Washington for the planning of elk/deer overpasses along a 24-mile corridor of State Route 12 to as large as $24 million to Wyoming for an overpass and several underpasses, plus high-barrier fencing along US 189. Many awards are for feasibility studies to identify hot spots and evaluate possible solutions, or to develop statewide strategic plans surrounding wildlife-vehicle collisions.
Overpasses appropriate for larger animals, such as deer, elk, and bears, typically get the most attention in the media—and unsurprisingly, carry the highest price tag, upwards of $6 million. Under the new grant program, states like Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Washington and Wyoming all received funding for bridges to help larger game.
The Colorado Department of Transportation received $22 million to build one of the largest wildlife overpasses in North America, spanning six lanes of Interstate 25 between Denver and Colorado Springs, the state’s most populated cities. In 2018, the Utah Department of Transportation built a similar overpass traversing six lanes on Interstate 80 near Park City after vehicles killed 106 deer, moose, elk, racoons, and cougar in a two-year period.
In Washington, Highway 20 directly impacts the state’s shrinking North Cascades elk herd, as this human-made disruption in the animals’ habitat is responsible for nine percent of all the state’s elk-vehicle collisions during the last decade. Thanks to $8.5 million in grant funds, Washington’s Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians aims to construct a bridge that spans two lanes of traffic with fencing along State Route 20.
Culverts, viaducts, and tunnels, however, are more common than overpasses, and states like California, Texas, Utah, and Vermont have received financing for those types of proposals.
In Vermont, a study using trail cameras and other monitoring identified a specific corridor within Green Mountain National Forest where the highway disrupts forest blocks of habitat for large mammals like black bears and moose, and for small aquatic creatures like salamanders and turtles. Meanwhile, the roads endangered the vitality of their population in the area, leading to a high mortality rate. Nerd trivia alert: It takes the spotted salamander a lengthy 88 seconds to cross a road… long enough for an unpalatable end.
It’s hoped that the $1.6 million given to the Vermont Agency of Transportation will help alleviate these issues as planners design an underpass along Interstate 89 and US Route 2 near the Waterbury-Bolton town line.
In Texas, the grant award is focused on the ocelot, an endangered species of unique cats breeding only in South Texas when it comes to the US. The ocelots’ road crossing and fragmented thorn scrub habitat within Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge puts the species at risk of extinction, and the $1.8 million award will install multiple underpass crossings near Los Fresnos.
While critter crossings are not new internationally, this new funding boosts US efforts in improving the conservation of wildlife. Thus, the question is no longer why did the chicken cross the road, but how…
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Patrice La Vigne is a freelance writer and author of 'Between Each Step'. Her bylines include Backpacker, Outside, Outdoor Business Journal, GearJunkie and Alaska Magazine. Though she lives in Alaska, she’s backpacked more than 6,000 miles on trails around the world and has road-tripped across America at least 40 times.
