By Steve Primm, Carnivore Conflict Reduction Manager
Here at Heart of the Rockies Initiative, and across a far broader community of conservation practitioners and scientists, connectivity is on our minds a lot. It’s even embedded in our flagship program, Keep it Connected.
Connectivity, at its core, is about keeping habitats, wildlife populations, and our own communities whole. It’s about preventing, or in some cases reversing, fragmentation of these integrated wholes.
Within our Carnivore Conflict Reduction program, our team often prioritizes investment aimed at solving predator-human problems that could disrupt or stall wildlife population-level connectivity. This conflict-driven fragmentation happens because conflicts – whether over livestock depredation, bears getting into garbage, or human safety concerns – often culminate in carnivore mortality. Chronic, repeat conflicts become obstacles to wildlife connectivity by dramatically reducing the chances that carnivores can move through a place without ending up in ultimately deadly conflicts.
A question we get frequently is whether our team engages in conflict reduction efforts related to infrastructure to reduce the likelihood of carnivores being killed by vehicles on highways or rail lines. . The short answer is no; our conflict reduction efforts are not directly involved in this vitally important aspect of connectivity. Let’s unpack that a bit, though.
Wildlife fragmentation that results from transportation infrastructure is a serious challenge; fortunately, many organizations globally and regionally have been working diligently on these challenges for over 30 years. Some of the earliest wildlife highway overpasses were built in Canada’s Banff National Park in the mid-1990s, addressing persistent roadkill and population fragmentation challenges on the Trans-Canada Highway running through the park. Today, Banff has six major wildlife overpasses and 38 underpasses, and science has demonstrated that these investments have reversed habitat fragmentation and greatly reduced roadkill.
From those early efforts 30 years ago, crossing structures have now been installed throughout North America. Travelers see them along major highways throughout the West, including very close to Heart of the Rockies Initiative’s Missoula office along US Highway 93. A massive structure spanning California’s 10-lane US 101 is nearing completion, re-connecting a wide range of species that dwell in two coastal mountain ranges (follow the progress in real time via these webcams). Our carnivore conflict reduction team salutes the work of organizations, engineers, and agencies that are tackling these colossal infrastructure projects.
And, while we aren’t involved directly in crossing infrastructure, we share a holistic perspective on the connectivity challenge, as a multi-faceted problem that takes a wide range of solutions. Conflicts with communities or agriculture could make it unlikely that carnivores would have a chance to even make use of crossing structures. By the same token, roadkill or simple avoidance of busy highways could mean that bears and wolves wouldn’t be roaming in some of the places we work on reducing conflicts in the first place. With broad partnerships, and different entities focusing on the challenges they’re best at, we can tackle the overarching issue of maintaining and restoring connectivity.
