Wildlife Crossings Save Lives, Money, and Improve the Environment

Lately, it seems our major political parties can find little to agree on. Nevertheless, some policies still garner strong bipartisan support, including protecting America’s public safety and wildlife heritage. In January, our new Congress and administration—regardless of which party is in the majority—can come together and find common ground on both critical issues, starting with the national imperative to build transportation infrastructure that is safer for humans while also restoring and connecting wildlife populations throughout the country.

Here’s how. Over 4.2 million miles of roadways crisscross our country, making rural areas, especially, dangerous places for motorists and animals. New data from State Farm shows how pervasive the problem is. Whether you’re in West Virginia or Idaho—or many states in between—the odds of hitting an animal with your car on rural roads, in low light conditions, are much higher than most people would ever guess. This is especially true during the fall migration season, when herds of animals move from their summer to winter habitat areas.

For example, one in every 40 West Virginians collided with an animal last year, and the statistics aren’t much better for Pennsylvania, Montana, Alabama, and Wyoming. The public safety implications of these wildlife-vehicle collisions are significant: More than 25,000 people are seriously injured every year from wildlife-vehicle collisions, and over $8 billion is spent annually on repairs, hospital bills, and other related costs.

The good news is there’s a readily available solution for this challenge. Wildlife-friendly infrastructure—primarily bridges and underpasses for animals—has been found to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions by more than 90% when properly located and designed with directional fencing near wildlife migration routes. The benefits can be measured in human safety, economic advantages, and wildlife conservation.

States around the nation—including Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and others—have adopted policies and laws to address wildlife-vehicle collisions. Utah recently passed a law—the first in the United States—dedicating long-term funding for wildlife crossings. And more states are advancing public safety and wildlife connectivity each year, from Pennsylvania and Virginia to Oregon and New Mexico.

But this is not and cannot be a state-only solution. Thankfully, Congress and the Biden administration recognized this and enacted the 2021 bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which provides $350 million over five years for grants to states, Tribes, and other entities to facilitate terrestrial wildlife connectivity projects. And several more bipartisan initiatives to facilitate wildlife connectivity have been moving through the current Congress. The Wildlife Movement Through Partnerships Act—sponsored by Senators Alex Padilla (D-CA) and John Hoeven (R-ND), and Representatives Ryan Zinke (R-MT) and Don Beyer (D-VA)—would authorize funding for states, Tribes, or local groups to conserve habitat connectivity. And the Habitat Connectivity on Working Lands Act, led by Representatives Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) and Ryan Zinke, and Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM), would make it easier for willing private landowners to receive funding—under existing U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs—for voluntary conservation of big-game species migration corridors.

In 2018, Ryan Zinke, then-Secretary of the Interior under the Trump Administration, issued Secretarial Order 3362, a first-of-its-kind administrative action aimed at improving big game habitat and migration corridors. The successful order has been continued by the Biden Administration. And recently, the USDA released a secretarial memo that directs select agencies under its jurisdiction to increase coordination with states, Tribes, and voluntary private property owners—as well as NGOs and other federal entities—to improve terrestrial wildlife habitat connectivity and corridors. Efforts will center on locally focused conservation, improvements to existing farm bill programs, incorporation of Indigenous knowledge, and more support of Tribal and landowner innovation.

Whatever the makeup of Congress and the administration in the coming years, we’re confident the federal government will provide the improvements and support needed—through the Farm Bill, reauthorization of the surface transportation act, and passage of individual legislation—to promote bipartisan wildlife connectivity projects that will save lives, reduce annual costs from wildlife-vehicle collisions, and sustain wildlife populations.

If you have a driver’s license, chances are you have either hit an animal with your vehicle, know someone who has, or driven past roadkill. And you are not alone. So now is the time for legislators and policymakers at all levels of government to join the effort to make our roads safer for drivers, passengers, and animals alike.

Marcia Argust is a director and Matt Skroch is a director with The Pew Charitable Trusts’ U.S. conservation project.