Our Wild Lives
Our Wild Lives takes listeners into the heart of wildlife conservation, sharing compelling stories from wildlife professionals doing critical work around the world. Your hosts Katie Perkins and Ed Arnett, of The Wildlife Society, bring you thought-provoking conversations with leading experts and emerging voices. Each episode dives into the wild lives of diverse species, explores complex ecosystems, and unpacks the urgent issues facing wildlife conservation.
Our Wild Lives
Bridging the Gap: Transportation Ecology
Wildlife vehicle collisions are responsible for more than $10 billion in damage in the United States each year. They also kill or injure a massive number of wild species. Management tools such as overpasses, underpasses, and more help reduce these conflicts around the world.
In this episode of Our Wild Lives, Katie Perkins and Ed Arnett of The Wildlife Society are joined by TWS members, Patty Cramer, Founder of the Wildlife Connectivity Institute, and Renee Callahan, Executive Director at ARC Solutions, to learn more about the science of wildlife transportation ecology.
Cramer and Callahan discuss how data-driven designs, policy, and collaboration are removing the barriers for wildlife around the world.
Cover image: A black bear uses a wildlife underpass on Colorado State Highway 9. Credit: Colorado DOT/Colorado Parks & Wildlife/Eco-resolutions/P. Cramer
Learn more:
Patty Cramer and the Wildlife Connectivity Institute: https://www.wildlifeconnectivity.org/
Renee Callahan and ARC Solutions: https://arc-solutions.org/
Wildlife Crossings Program: https://highways.dot.gov/federal-lands/wildlife-crossings
Zinke and Beyers Bipartisan Bill to Codify Successful Wildlife Crossing Program: https://zinke.house.gov/media/press-releases/zinke-introduces-bipartisan-bill-codify-successful-wildlife-crossing-program
Advocate for Wildlife Crossings: https://youtu.be/D-1W7oRxg-I?si=PgjJJmcLpTsnR50U
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[00:00:02]Katie Perkins: I remember my very first day of high school freshman year. We were late as usual, speeding down a back road. All of a sudden, my school bag went flying, my brother's drumsticks hit the dash and my mom's breakfast littered the floor. In a flash of fur, we caught a glimpse of a whitetailed deer ricocheting off the left-hand side of our Chevy Suburban.
The doe didn't make it in the front of our car was toast. And I'm sure many of you can relate to a similar story of your own. This week we're diving into the world of transportation ecology with experts, Dr. Patty Cramer and Renee Callahan. We discover the impacts of roads on habitat, connectivity, herd memory, and more.
We'll explore the history of wildlife crossings, the science of designing effective passages and the pressing need for permanent funding to support these lifesaving projects. From elk overpasses to salamander tunnels. Keep on listening to learn how collaboration and policy are paving the way for safer roadways for humans and animals alike.
This is Our Wild Lives brought to you by The Wildlife Society.
[00:01:21] Ed Arnett: Today we're gonna talk about the impacts of roads and highways on wildlife.
And we've got two expert, TWS members joining us today that have been working on this issue for a long time. Dr. Patty Kramer. been a TWS member for a long, long while and has been working on this issue. She runs her own consulting business and has been working on, uh, transportation ecology for a long, long time.
Good to see you, Patty. Uh, thanks for joining us. And Renee Callahan, who's the, Executive Director of ARC Solutions, Animal Road Crossing Solutions. So welcome to you both,really appreciate you joining. And this is a topic that has been around and an issue for a long time, but not a lot of wildlifers think about it, it's not always on the front page of, of the headlines. Uh, Patty, you've been involved in the ecology side of this for a long time, and the science side, why don't you give us a little bit of bit. The background and you bring and, and, what, the history of transportation ecology issues have been.
[00:02:23] Patty Cramer: Thanks. Thanks, Ed. I began in this transportation ecology world, back in that last century in Florida. But I'll, I'll start with the, the history and then weave how I got involved at, at certain points.
But, people have been aware of, of how wildlife are getting killed on roads, for over a hundred years. The Stoners is a couple that recorded wildlife being killed in the 1920s and published it, uh, what the Model Ts and the other newly developed cars were killing along the, roads. So we were very aware of it, but things didn't really start to happen until, President Eisenhower's, uh, interstate system began being built across the country. As it was being developed from the East to the West. The wildlife agencies were starting to realize that wildlife areas where, particularly where mule deer populations live, were gonna be bisected and, a lot of mule deer were gonna get killed. So, the wildlife agencies in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming were able to convince, federal highways, that they need to be putting underpasses and overpasses in these new developing highways. So our first overpass in the United States or North America was in 1975 in Utah. And at that time we were getting underpasses in Colorado and Wyoming. So that was the beginning. There wasn't a really good systematic way to, to research them, and it was in the beginning of the 2000's where cameras came along and helped us see how well they were working. In the meantime, in the 1980s and early nineties, Florida became a leader in this field with, the development of wildlife underpasses in, roads that were being upgraded. So they didn't necessarily have new roads. It was interstate, um, 25 that went across, alligator alley. Which is in the southern part of Florida and 27 wildlife crossing structures were built underneath that to accommodate water, but also Florida panthers, alligators, great blue herons and all kinds of animals. So then they saw how well that worked. They were just looking mostly at tracks. And then, The Florida black bear also was an impetus for developing more um, structures. So Florida was the leader, and Utah, was slowly putzing along as well as other Colorado and other places. But it was in that early 2000's when we developed cameras, that were digital and could take, uh, photos triggered by motion that we really started to be able to show the DOT's in the world that these things worked. So I got involved in the nineties. And I learned how to work with DOT's, which is not part of my education. But let me tell you, if you wanna work in this world, that is a big part of your education is how do you work with engineers who hold the purse strings? So, my group of wildlife ecologists in Gainesville, Florida were able to convince Florida DOT to build wildlife crossings across Paynes Prairie. And there was already four culverts underneath, US 41, south of town there, but we got four more built in there along with a one foot high concrete wall to keep amphibians and reptiles out.
So I was got into this world as a volunteer and learned, learned to work the ropes of politicians, writing editorials in the newspapers, um, going in with, the mantra, DOT is our friends, we will not embarrass you. And, uh, a lot of, a lot of good things became from there. And then,in the 2000's I wound up being at finally at the right place at the right time when, National Academies has a subsection called, NCHRP, National Cooperative Highway Research Program. And there was a project that became my PhD postdoc looking at what have we done for wildlife up to this point. And so I was at the nexus of knowing all the different states and even provinces, and that's how I got involved and became a leader by surveying people, bringing the data together, getting the word out at conferences and not being, resistant to getting in there with the engineers and the guys at the DOT and showing them, "Hey, come on, this works." So that's how I got involved and how our world evolved and I kind of got in early and that helped me to help lead the country into what we're doing now.
[00:06:22] Ed Arnett: Yeah. And, uh, we'll get into the working with engineers and DOT's here in a bit. That's a key part of this conversation. I actually, you the history kind of triggered, memory. A little further back. there's a interesting monograph written by one of the early conservationists, William Temple Hornady, was in cahoots with, you know, all the early conservationists like Georgia Bird Grinnell and Theodore Roosevelt and others.
But he, and he was the first director of the Bronx Zoo, which later became, The, uh, uh, The Wildlife Conservation Society. But Hornady wrote an interesting monograph on, saving the sage grouse. But there's an interesting chapter in there talking about, the advent of the automobile.
And he was really concerned about over-harvest, you know, because of the advantage that vehicles gave um., hunters, in particular was his thesis. But, know, that was maybe one of the early observations of vehicles and roadway systems.
But we also have a policy side of this, not just the ecology side that you've been engaged with a lot, Patty. So, Renee, this is kind of, your angle. You've been involved on that policy space. You're a lawyer by training and, got into this several years ago. So tell us a little bit about your background and kind of how you got into this and it's particularly that policy angle.
[00:07:42] Renee Callahan: Absolutely, and thanks Ed, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it and appreciate your help elevating this topic, that's near and dear to my heart. So I'm joining you from Bozeman, Montana andI have actually been working on this issue for close to 15 years. and actually with ARC as well. I joined ARC in 2011.I think the, one of the key things about ARC, at least and sort of how I came to, to work on this issue is actually, before I, started working for them, their genesis was in a design competition. So they sponsored the world's first international wildlife crossing infrastructure design competition ran in 2008 and nine there was a winner announced at the 2010, Transportation Research Board, annual meeting in Washington, DC. And effectively, folks looked around and said, wow, we have all this momentum going, raising awareness about this topic, the issue, the cost of wildlife vehicle collisions, both in terms of human safety as well as wildlife.
And really decided, wow, we have so much momentum. We've gotten all this sort of traction in terms of interest. We've been able to raise awareness about these proven solutions to this problem. And so folks were reluctant to sort of let them, that momentum go. They ended up hiring me at the time, on July 1st in 2011, as a partnership coordinator. And I have been with him ever since. So you might be saying to yourself. Well, what does policy have to do with design? And I think one of the things I would say that has morphed, with ARC is that we are really interested in ensuring that crossings are built wherever they're needed. And so, we talked to all of our, you know, partners like Patty was saying, you talked to the states, you talked to other folks in this discipline, and you sort of ask them, well, why aren't they being built? And as it turned out, there were a whole lot of barriers before you even get to the question of, you know, what's the optimal design for this particular species, this particular, crossing, this topography, et cetera. And so, that is one of the reasons that we've worked on, I've worked, ended up working on policy despite being, hired by a nonprofit with a focus on design. And that is because, when you talk to folks, and we did a survey back in 2012, um, uh, 500 plus, US DOT and state DOT officials, and the overwhelming majority, like 68% identified funding as the number one barrier to getting, wildlife crossings built where needed.
So, enter the policy, element, especially given my background. I was a lawyer.
[00:10:28] Ed Arnett: You know, and I wanted to share a little anecdote on how I met both of you, and got involved with this myself. And this kind of dates back to the first Trump administration when then Secretary Ryan Zinke issued secretarial order 3362 on, wildlife migration and critical winter range, and a great policy.
And it, I say it's a great policy because it has endured through two, different administrations. Trump one, Biden and now Trump two, and it's still going strong and has produced some really, really incredible results both from a, a science perspective, but also habitat, restoration and, the whole transportation ecology piece came into this. I was working with, TWS member Casey Stemmler, who was leading the effort on implementation of 3362. And he'd done a survey of the state's, state wildlife agencies on, threats to migration and to, winter range as well, but big focus on migration and every single state agency identified highways, highways, road systems, connectivity and such as a real threat and a real issue. So he asked me, I was the Chief Scientist at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership at the time, and we were trying to engage in any number of different manners on the policy angle, and he asked me to put this workshop together. And hence I started looking at who I thought knew something about this issue. Well, I landed with, Patty and contacted her, and then later Renee, we got in touch on ARC's involvement and all the science that other, some people had been doing and the design aspects, and I can't imagine both of you weren't scratching your head going, "who the hell's this guy?" You know, wading into our space. But that's kind of how we came together When I put this workshop together that we held in, um, Utah, Salt Lake City. God, what was that, 2018 I think.
[00:12:25] Patty Cramer: January, 2019.
[00:12:27] Ed Arnett: Oh, there you go. Patty has the exact date. So, we all met face-to-face for the first time at that conference, and I suspect, you know, a lot of people have been working on this issue for a long time, but I was pretty naive coming into the fact that the state Departments of Transportation and the state wildlife agencies weren't always talking to each other. And I've had this experience in the forest industry where, you know, not always are the silvilculturists and biologists working together, but they should be. You guys had already been working on this and thinking about it, but in bringing those state Departments of Transportation, I believe there were 12 DOT's and 10 wildlife agencies, plus a bunch of us non, you know, in the nonprofit sector and other realms of transportation ecology. And the one thing that came out of that, that Casey and I contemplated and talked about was that there was no dedicated funding to this. And I want to dig into that a little bit, Renee with you on the history of that. You know, prior to a previous transportation there was not even language to even suggest that wildlife crossings, I mean, engineers, Department of Transportation don't wake up thinking, how am I gonna save wildlife today? It's how do I fix roads and save lives and people and make, infrastructure safe? So there wasn't even any language in there. And then we identified the fact that there's no dedicated funding and we really need that.
So Renee, tell us a little bit about, how that manifested in the FAST 41. I can't remember the acronym for FAST, but it was a transportation bill, several years ago. And you were part of helping get that. Maybe both of you were, but I know you were part of getting some of that language in there for Wildlife Crossing Structured Development.
[00:14:11] Renee Callahan: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, and it was such a seminal meeting, there in Salt Lake City, I think, and really as you say, sort of bridging, you know, these silos between the transportation and the wildlife agencies. And again, going to, just thinking of Casey and the work with, as you said, that secretarial order really bringing to the forefront this issue of roads, in a way that I think wasn't visible before, certainly not across both disciplines. So, and again, back to that, that 2012 survey, hearing that the number one issue was funding and dedicated funding in particular. And I remember Casey and I started doing like a little, you know, back of the envelope.
You know, if you, how many deer do you have to hit before you, you know, equal, uh, a highway safety improvement program, which is one of those programs under Federal Highways. And it was something like, you know, it was an enormous number. And so part of the issue was there were, any mention of wildlife, vehicle collisions was extremely limited prior to then. And it was good language, but it just wasn't enough. It was very specific in terms of either the geography or that safety element,with one small exception. And so again, figuring out that part of the issue is. There's two pieces to it, right? It's the funding, which is critical, but one of the biggest issues relating to funding, in addition to not being, you know, not having this dedicated pot, was that even where you had a pot where you might be eligible, like that highway safety improvement program or HCIP as it's known for sure Um, you didn't have the data, in most cases to demonstrate the problem, and therefore you weren't able to make a data-driven case to the DOT, about this project, which is of course competing against tons of other important projects, for very scarce transportation dollars. So this sort of, you know, combination of factors, led us to talk again at that meeting and afterwards about. "How can we get some dedicated funding? What would that look like, and what are the associated policies that need to go with that?"
So what that ultimately led to was inclusion in the most recent, the current transportation law, Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act. And it was proceeded immediately by the FAST Act, which is the one that you're thinking of that was in place at the time of that meeting. and what we were able to do was find some champions who were interested in this, knew about this issue, had, you know, personal and professional experience with it being especially a big interest in their states in particular, who were willing to raise this issue, for the transportation bill that ended up being the one that passed in 2021. So we were able to secure $350 million in federal funding as part of the, of a discretionary grant program known as the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program. There's also a whole associated, series of policy, pieces or deliverables, that were part of that law as well. One of which, for example, is, federal developing a standardized methodology for collecting and reporting on both crash and carcass data. And Patty can probably back me up on this one, but I've heard from folks who've been working on this issue for 30 plus years that that's something they've been wanting. Because again, when you look at your transportation dollars, you're using data to decide where do you put these very scarce investments and that standardized data piece was, is considered sort of crucial. We know we have a problem, we just don't know how big it is, and that, that policy piece, for example, would help us essentially, uh, get these projects in a place where they're able to demonstrate their own merit against other projects. But in the meantime, having that dedicated funding, and that did not require a cost-benefit analysis, was really the key, I think, to allowing a lot of states, tribes, municipalities to really look at this issue in a way that they hadn't been able to do, prior to, the Wildlife Crossings Pilot uh, Program funding
[00:18:30] Ed Arnett: Sure, there was no dedicated funding and no guarantee, so why put all your energy into something that may or may never happen?
[00:18:36] Renee Callahan: Exactly.
[00:18:37] Katie Perkins: So Patty, as someone who doesn't know much about wildlife crossings and you know, kind of how they operate, can you just walk us through like what kinds of crossings are used around the world? How do different species use different crossings?
[00:18:51] Patty Cramer: Sure, sure. Thanks Katie. Well we've got, all these different terms that we all use interchangeably that I wanted to make clear because sometimes, there's a miscommunication. So let me, let me start with wildlife vehicle collisions first, and then go into the crossing types. Our, world talks about WVC's, which are wildlife vehicle collisions, which are. a phenomenon. It's nothing specific. It's just this idea that animals are getting hit on the road. We use data to prove the point, as Renee was saying, but we use reported crashes. Those are very different than what actually is happening out there. 'cause the carcass data are showing us that there are definitely a lot more things going on than the reported crashes.
So, for instance, 18 wheelers, the drivers of those vehicles don't report their crashes. So if you have a trucking route, the crash data is not the only way to get to the problem because wildlife need to move. So we use crash data, carcass data, and then wildlife habitat data to look at where wildlife, need to get across roads, whether that be pronghorn migration or a female turtle trying to get up on a bank somewhere and lay eggs. So the wildlife crossings is another one of those general terms that explains all the different ways to get animals above and below the road. Wildlife underpasses, get the animals under the road and wildlife overpasses, of course, get them over. Some of the first, um, wildlife crossing structures for smaller animals, um, in Amherst, Massachusetts, there's some salamander crossings and they're, they're little tiny box pipes practically with some open grading to allow water in there. And salamanders go back and forth so you can get salamanders and snakes under, under roads with small structures. Then you can get, say, medium-sized mammals with something that's only two feet high by two feet wide. Can't be too long. My research has shown that, um, you start creating a long, dark tunnel and you start getting over 200 feet long, animals don't wanna go through it. That if it's underneath a divided highway, you wanna open it up or do something to keep animals from worrying about a predator sitting at the other end with their mouth open.
[00:20:56] Ed Arnett: Yeah, what's on the other end?
[00:20:57] Patty Cramer: Right? thats the number one question we all get, in our, in our world when we give talks. So the, the bottom line is, mammalian predators don't stand at the end of a wildlife crossing structure and wait for these smaller critters because there's plenty of people out there with guns that will kill them.
There's plenty of poaching going on and you're not gonna see a coyote standing on the side of the road last very long. But we do see, um, we had magpies, which is in the crow family in the West. We found them, getting small mammals through a structure when they were running over the snow cause it was like all these guts at the end of the culvert. And I was like, what's going on here? And then I looked at my cameras and it was the, the magpies are getting 'em up. And then the other thing was, the, the Paynes Prairie Wildlife Crossings under, underneath, uh, 41 in Gainesville. I took a group of grad students there, on, on a field trip about 10 years ago. And the big daddy, um alligators were just sitting there at the very end of the culverts just waiting for animals and fish to come through. So we do have some predators, but very, very rare if like mammalian predators gonna sit there. So then, we also find in the research that we do with these cameras that I mentioned, or camera traps in our world, is that the, there's certain preferences by different species. And so if you go from whitetailed deer who adapt to, humans very well, they will go through all kinds of structures, even if they have to duck their heads underneath it. And even in Virginia, Bridget Donaldson found that they'll do go through a culvert with a right angle, and they can't even see the light at the end of the tunnel. But then you get to mule deer, they're more, um, selective. They're worried about, puma and they will not go, they, they're, the repel rate goes up once you start getting over 140 feet long. So I always recommend don't go over 200 feet long underneath the highway for mule deer or any of these ungulates cause they're, they're, they're pretty concerned. The second most important, dimension is I, I call them, is the width. So again, a, a prey animal wants to be able to run left or right, in case something's coming after it. And the least important is the height. I call elk my problem child, if they don't wanna do something, they go find another way to do it.
So they'll pull your fence down, they'll jump up your escape ramp. They'll walk for miles to see the fence end to get around it. So we have to work pretty carefully with elk or wait five to six years after an underpass has been placed to, to see if that they all adapt to it. So overpasses work really great for elk. Pronghorn work in a world that's very, um, open. So pronghorn almost rare, you can't get an entire herd of pronghorn underneath the road typically. Can't even get 'em to jump fences typically either. So pronghorn, elk and bighorn sheep prefer to go over structures. And one of the things we need to do as wildlife ecologists is teach the engineers and the planners and the people outside of our world that there's this functional connectivity which relates back to our world of wildlife connectivity, which has become very popular in the world of everybody, like people all over the world are hearing about, wildlife connectivity. And if you get one pronghorn buck to go through a structure. Well, is that a success or did you want the entire herd to go through the structure? So we, we try to show that functional connectivity of these structures is a very important part of it if you want your population to stay alive. If you just want genetic connectivity, like one mountain lion to go through to plant its seed in some other area. Okay. But, most of the time we're trying to protect populations, so we have a whole plethora and range of types of structures that are targeted for the specific species.
[00:24:26] Ed Arnett: Yeah, that connectivity piece is really critical and, you know, the data are so striking, with the advent of GPS collar data and it, you know, daily or very frequent observations. And, you know, there are maps from all over the west in particular, but the ones that were most striking to me were on Interstate 80 in Wyoming.
And then, the interstate up around Flagstaff that, some of our colleagues have been collecting that data for a long time. And you can see the individual movements coming right down to the highway and just stopping. The little color patterns just stop at those highways. And it begs the questions: "Okay, what was on the other side pre 1930s, 40's or whenever those highways were built, that obviously was critical for the survival of those species.
And in the west, I mean, animals migrate long distances because of very harsh climates. And if you start eating away at critical habitat. Now you're affecting their population, dynamic, survivorship in the winter, juvenile survival, all that stuff, and maybe connecting those habitats across these highways, uh,obviously it will help if the animals need to go over there for a critical winter range, for example. But there's not a lot of data on that, is there, Patty? I'm not aware of a lot. I mean, we can model the habitat and you can look at what it could provide for a pronghorn population, for example, but that loss of connectivity and how that manifested in a particular herd, there's not a lot really, on that is there?
[00:25:59] Patty Cramer: No. going back to secretary order 3362. That's really helped especially, the less, monetarily endowed western states put collars on animals. Like New Mexico hardly knew anything and they still are having a little lag in their ability to know where animals go. When I work with western states and I talk to people that have been around a bit of a while in the wildlife agencies, I find out what we know about herds, and I'll give you an example. Interstate 15 goes from like San Diego all the way up into Canada and it goes through, Utah and Idaho. And, and right at the Utah Idaho border, there's a sublet mule deer herd. And when that interstate was put in, the wildlife agency couldn't get wildlife underpasses placed. Well, it turns out that herd had to go east-west across the interstate and the animals either died trying or they stopped trying, and now there's no herd memory of that resource on the west side of the highway. So they wind up shooting down into Utah to try and find food. So we actually do see populations losing the ability to get to where they need to go.
You can say that with, say, grizzly bears coming outta Yellowstone, trying to find. new, new resources or, or new habitat and, they're getting killed. So it, it is really critical. A another thing I do wanna mention too, I have a couple of pictures of animals using a structure with a fire behind them. I have a bighorn sheep running on an overpass in Colorado. And mule deer, an underpass in Utah. And so that's another big thing is climate change comes. These animals do have to adapt and if they can't get to the other side of the road, they could literally die in a fire or they can't get to the new resources once everything's been burned up.
So, there are these inabilities of these herds to adapt over time if they can't get across.
And so, there needs to be this lock and step work together, with the Department of Transportation. I'll give you an example. In Idaho, there's US 30 south of Montpelier. It's really close to the Grand Tetons right on the border with Wyoming and the mule deer herds are getting killed there. It's a trucking route. The crash data wasn't showing it a problem, but I've had my students sit when I was a professor, tell me it looked like a civil war battlefield. There's so many dead animals and the crash data wasn't cutting it because of the trucks, but we, we, being the people that I work with there, were able to record the dead bodies and the the, uh, land on both sides privately owned, took years, but the Idaho Fish and Game, along with nonprofit partners got conservation easements on both sides of the road. So that's really important then to get wildlife crossings. And then ITD or Idaho Transportation Department won a wildlife crossings pilot program grant to build three structures and fences.
So it's this really like looking at a puzzle and the, the pinch point might be the road, but it really is, part of a bigger problem or challenge that this, this transportation ecology world. One of the things I wanted to say about it is so collaborative and if you can work with different kinds of people and get in their heads and say, what motivates them? How can I get them on board? You, you do really well for wildlife in this world.
[00:29:08] Ed Arnett: Well, it has to be because of the point you just made. You can build the most perfect, well-designed wildlife crossing, underpass, or overpass. But if you didn't consider what was on the other side of it and whether the private landowner wants to cooperate or not. It could be for naught, no matter how effective it is.
So, you know, Renee, you've, worked in the space with a lot of different entities. how does that collaboration play out in, uh, in the work that you do?
[00:29:37] Renee Callahan: Right. I mean, you know, ARC is itself a partnership of folks and we have folks from, you know, agencies and NGOs and for-profits and foundations and universities. You know, it's crystal clear, that this is not one of those things that any, you know, party or entity standing alone can fix. And I think, you know, one of the illustrations is you'll have, um, as Patty said, right, you'll have a Department of Transportation who's like, my main goal is to get people safely, efficiently, and effectively, uh, people and goods, uh, across the nation, right? So it's kind of like with exceptions, obviously, you know, wildlife are not typically, within their mission.
And again, I know environmental stewardship is, but but that doesn't always necessarily lead you to conclude that you need to mitigate a wildlife issue.
[00:30:29] Ed Arnett: Right.
[00:30:30] Renee Callahan: One the other hand, you have the Departments of Wildlife who are like, "Wildlife are our mission, roads aren't our mission." You have a little bit of this sort of mission mismatch where people are pointing at each other of, you know, "it's not my core problem." Um, and so that's one of the, I think the illustrations that you have to break down these silos. You have to bridge between these agencies. And again, that was one of, you know, the beautiful things about that meeting in Salt Lake. The other thing I just have to add, and I know Patty, you've kind of touched on this, indirectly, is, if you're looking for a project that you're gonna be able to wrap up in a year or two and be able to like, tell your funder, I'm all done. This is not, probably not the right space for you. Because these types of projects, again, because you're building public infrastructure over public highways. , These are projects that take a long time. and, you know, that's both a blessing and a curse. But I do think, there's no question that we've seen such an incredible increase in folks working together, again, collaboratively on this issue, recognizing no one entity can do this all. And I think it has, it is one of the things that has really catalyzed, I think, movement in this area. People figuring out, you know, where are the barriers and how can I contribute to, either reducing or eliminating those barriers. And so again, you have your wildlife biologists, you have your ecologists, you have your landscape architects, you have your procurement experts, right. you have your policy makers. And it really kinds of runs the gamut. So it's a great point and it is, and I think it is the key to, the successes that we've seen over the past decade.
[00:32:12] Ed Arnett: Yeah, that timeline thing was a real eye-opener for me that, you know, these things are planned for decades. And there are various entry points in for the wildlife agency to talk to the Department of Transportation, but it sure can't be a year before it's getting built, right? I mean, it has to be much, much earlier in that process to make this happen.
Even if the funding were there and a partnership was developed, this is not something you can do last minute.
[00:32:38] Renee Callahan: No, and I mean there are instances in which, you know, people have been able to sort of pivot on a dime, but very few and far between. And that's usually instances in which, you know, you're able to, have an environmental or exception or whatnot when it comes to some of the regulatory require requirements under, you know, National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA, and other, hurdles that you have to clear for these projects.
But it's, yeah. I mean,you look at some of them, and you know, it's 15 years of planning before you get to the actual project. And there's also, I think just an awareness and, um, there's a sort of a training element here, potentially.
But, the closest thing you can get to a list of your projects that your state, DOT is gonna do is to look at something, they call a Statewide Transportation Improvement Program or STIP. And fortunately, it is one of the most visible sort of, you know, lenses into what's coming down the pike for the DOT. But part of the issue is by the time you show up on the the biggest portion that document, which is, you know, plan projects for the next four years. Those are the ones that have already been planned, they've already been programmed, which means they've already had funding assigned to them otherwise, they're somewhere else in that document. But when you come to a state DOT, four years out from a project that's on that project list. Every single time I've ever done that, I was told it's too late. So it really does open up this, opportunity, I think for folks to get involved earlier on. And that's also the beauty of this issue, right?
When you first start planning your project. And again, prescoping, pre-planning, first time you go out on the ground in the field. What do we think we can do, you know, with this project? What can we accomplish? Even just having, you know, a box or whatever it might be to say, "Are there any wildlife considerations here?"
And the reason I raise that in such detail is because if you have a plan project that you're doing and you wanna add wildlife, mitigation measures to it, is gonna cost you a fraction of what it costs to retrofit. You know, go back and fix something that you built 20, 30 years ago, when you weren't considering wildlife. It's a fraction of the cost. So in a perfect world, every project we do today, we would be checking early on is their wildlife issue, 'cause then I know it's gonna be, it's almost a rounding error. It's literally like 1-2% of your budget. But it in all these spots where we didn't get it right 20 or 30 years ago, and we're not gonna redo that road for 20 or 30 years if you
[00:35:28] Ed Arnett: It's a bigger number.
Yeah.
[00:35:29] Renee Callahan: exactly, it's gonna be a bigger number, but you're gonna capture the benefit of all those
[00:35:37] Ed Arnett: Yeah.
[00:35:38] Renee Callahan: collisions over that period of time between when you do that retrofit and when you might have otherwise, done that, that highway, segment as a whole. If you, you know, you look at the, you look at the crossings in Wyoming overs Trapper's point, John Eddins the, Wyoming DOT engineer, told people those crossings, and it was two overs and five unders, I believe, plus fencing. They determined they were gonna pay for themselves in 17 years. So figuring out where those priorities are and doing those retrofits, it just makes, you know, it makes dollars and cents right.
[00:36:15] Ed Arnett: Expand on that just a little bit. Um, on the cost, because this is a true win-win for humans and wildlife, right? The costs for insurance companies, and just loss of life and injuries and all that. It's huge, isn't it?
[00:36:32] Patty Cramer: Yes. I, I am a researcher, but I find ways to, weave all this into my research. So, in 2022, I published, a manual for the, the country with my, I call 'em the, A team fabulous wildlife ecologist on my team. And what I did is I censused every single traffic safety office of every DOT in the nation.
So I had the crash data from 2014 to 2019, and I was able to say exactly how many crashes we had, what the averages and what the costs were. And so again, crashes are just a fraction of what's going on out there. But of the crash data, I added it all up for every state. And each year we have the cost to society of over 10 billion, that's a B, $10 billion from all the crashes. And there's states like Michigan, which has over 50,000 reported crashes a year that are, they're way off the charts. But, the way I have to go backwards a little bit to tell you how that number's derived at. Federal Highways. Has a, a, a method of saying the value of a human life. The last time they published this was in 2018, and they said it was $11 million.
And then from there, each crash is valued as a percentage of that. So a crash that's only property damage, which is typically 95% of these, is about, um, $11,000. then you get into the, the injury crashes. So it, it is a playing, playing the game. But um, I do wanna say one thing about the planning, is,the, the, wave of our profession has been that we, push for wildlife crossing structures. We got some in, we studied them and answered lots of questions in the early 2000's and the 20teens. Now in the 2020s, what we're doing is figuring out how to integrate into the planning process and transportation agencies, and this is where
[00:38:21] Ed Arnett: On the front end.
[00:38:23] Patty Cramer: Right. I would love to like, inspire my colleagues in the wildlife world to, to understand the transportation planning process has six steps from a long range transportation plan that's written for a 20 year span, all the way to daily operations and maintenance. In those six steps, what, like Renee was referring to, we kept hearing about, oh, a project's coming up, we want wildlife crossings. Well, the project manager would say it's too late. So in our meetings with the DOT, particularly in Utah where I worked, they pushed it back and said, you have to be in the programming stage.
So there's a long range transportation plan. Then there's programming and that's where the data come in and start to show the DOT. There's a problem and either you get standalone wildlife crossing structure or if there's something like a climbing lane in a mountainous area, and they're putting it in, that's great time to put in wildlife overpass like they did in Utah. So what I would suggest to our colleagues is, number one, get to know who the transportation partner is in your district, in your region. And a lot of times what people have been doing is they think they have a, a transportation project once in their career and then they're over one and done. And I do see that in the minds of the engineers quite a bit, but the best relationships and the best progress makes, it comes from people working together in the wildlife agencies, both the federal and state level, and the nonprofits and the DOT And they meet regularly, several times a year and start to see where things can happen.
Because you can easily put an eight foot high fence up to, it could be a wing fence, couple hundred feet to direct animals to a bridge and the problem is largely solved. So that's one way is the relationships have to be developed and you have to meet regularly as part of somebody's position. Number two, if you've got wildlife data, whether that be, of course we're saying GPS locations of ungulates, but it could be turtles getting schmucked on the road, salamanders trying to cross in the springtime um, and bring that data to be used by the DOT so that it can be integrated into that long term transportation process. So there are multiple entry points for our data and for our collaboration, and that's what we're seeing across the nation, not just in all the Western states we keep mentioning, um, that people are learning to work together and plan well ahead of time to get wildlife crossings across their states.
[00:40:47] Renee Callahan: You know we have been focusing on Western states. I did wanna, give a shout out actually one of our partners, TNC, has done a great job of sort of highlighting kind of exactly this on the ground consideration and work and these different phases essentially, that these projects go through. I think, you know, a lot of that is just education, right? Because this is something new, it's novel, and you know, for better or worse, agencies are not, are not always looking to be sort of a first mover in a space. And the other thing I just wanna note quickly is just back to that idea of how much are we spending on this issue?
And I know, Patty, the number, that you had, it's even, based as you said on that, state highway patrol data. I know, for example, in Virginia, my, my home state, and this is Bridget Donaldson again, one of the researchers there at the, Virginia, DOT. They looked at the issue of what is the magnitude of this problem?
And this is a 2017 report. They thought based on that state highway patrol data, they had about 7,500 crashes. Obviously all, almost all whitetail deer in Virginia. And then when they looked at the insurance data, they figured out they had 61,000. So it literally like eight and a half times as many. And all of a sudden an issue that wasn't even on the top 10, you know, lists for Virginia, they realized they were spending $500 million, one state one year alone spending 500 million on this issue.
So, again to me it goes to, it's like a win-win, you know, win, right? If you wanna have a good, a good use of taxpayer dollars, where you're gonna get something, you know, up to a 90 plus percent return on investment, which I think is something that's almost unheard of with transportation infrastructure.
[00:42:41] Ed Arnett: You know, Renee, along those lines, we've talked about partnerships and collaboration, and intuitively you'd think, well, gosh, a natural partner is the insurance companies and the insurance industry. But, what I took away from our, our workshop and what I hear from almost everybody, including you two, is, they're not that interested in partnering on this issue, are they?
[00:43:04] Renee Callahan: That's certainly been my experience and I've heard a couple different reasons for it because that's what people often think, right? They're like, well, is this is gonna save the insurance companies a lot of money? Haven't you thought about involving them and the things that I've heard are that, probably the most succinct explanation I've heard, which is from one of my, former colleagues and friends, uh, Sandra Jacobson used to be with US Forest Service has since retired, has done a ton of work on this specific issue. Um, but her succinct, answer is, deer don't sue. So, part of it is that if you're. Again, not my bailiwick, but if you're an insurance company, you're trying to figure out what is my maximum exposure. And if you have two people involved in a crash they end up suing each other, your maximum exposure has, you know, a pretty big, uh, spectrum. Whereas if you are involved in a wildlife vehicle collision. There is no second driver. There is no litigation unless, certainly not against, un uh, not against a, an automobile insurance company, so that's one piece of it. And then I think the other piece it too is, it's effectively a pass through. So whatever the cost of a deer vehicle collision is for me as an insurance company, I can just change my rate based on how much it costs me or how much I'm projecting it's gonna cost
[00:44:25] Ed Arnett: Pass it on to the driver. Yeah.
[00:44:27] Renee Callahan: Exactly. Because that was one of the suggestions. It's like, what if everybody paid, you know, $10 extra on their insurance? We put that in a big kitty, and then that was what, you know, we spent on, mitigating our highways. I will also say the Virginia, sorry, Maryland, Maryland legislature attempted to do something like this. I wanna say it was either last year or the year before and it, there was a huge reaction. Uh, they ended up, not getting that provision passed. What they were able to do was to get the insurance company to do a study about why it was gonna cost them more to assess this fee than they were gonna collect something in that, genre there. So there is a report out there about the intricacies of the insurance, companies and how they looked at this issue, at least in Maryland, for folks who are interested.
[00:45:19] Patty Cramer: And I can give you one sentence from what they told us at a meeting was, why should we give you money for something that might work and the benefits are spread among all the insurance companies when all we have to do is raise the rates on our customers. And I'm working in South Dakota, and they all have to have comprehensive insurance because the majority of crashes in South Dakota are with wildlife.
So it's, it's just, it's, it's, po it's capitalism.
[00:45:43] Ed Arnett: Well and. You know, one of the things we heard at the workshop from the individual that joined us sharing a lot of the data and some of the perspectives from the Insurance Industry Association was that they're also putting more money into technology, better headlights and warning systems, that kind of thing on vehicles.
So they were more interested in that than proactively. I think there were,I couldn't tell you where, but I heard of maybe a couple examples where project specific engagement, but broadly, insurance industry has not been interested in becoming a partner on all this.
[00:46:18] Katie Perkins: We'll be right back after this short message. The Wildlife Society bridges the gap between science, advocacy, and action turning research into real-world conservation.
Our network and resources educate policymakers and the public on key environmental issues, ensuring that science stays at the center of wildlife management. All TWS members can be a voice for our profession by taking part in our Conservation Affairs Network. Learn more at wildlife.org/policy.
So looking towards the future, how can the public, influence these kind of projects? What kind of support might they want to do? How does that all play into how there might be more wildlife crossings on the landscape?
[00:47:05] Renee Callahan: So I think one of the things people can do, is actually support reauthorization of this program. The Wildlife Crossings Pilot program that I had mentioned, that federal level program that had 350 million in dedicated funding, just to provide a tiny bit of background, that's actually a five year law. It got enacted and signed into law in November of 2021. So we are actually as of October 1st in the final federal fiscal year of that program. Uh, Federal Highways has awarded, four tranches of funding, um, for all but roughly $80 million, from that original 350 million. Uh, we are expecting for that notice of funding to come out, during the first half of 2026. But that's it. After that money, that notice is put out and it's awarded. That's it. So what will happen is, it's not just the Wildlife Crossing Pilot. Right. It's the entire act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. It's funded through September 30th, 2026. So one of the things that we've been doing is working on, getting the pilot program made by permanent and also larger. That's sort of our two bumper stickers. Um, one of the things that we learned from the first four rounds of funding is that there were requests for the first round. They put out a notice for 110 million. They got requests for $550 million in grant funds that would support $700 million worth of projects, but they only had 110 million to give away. They literally had, and just stick with me for this one. They literally had more proposals that were highly recommended that didn't get funding. $288 million of proposals that were highly recommended. But only 110 million of them got funding. So, and then the same thing pretty much happened with the second round, which was for 125 million.
So one of the things that, that is crystal clear is that the demand for these funds way outstrips the supply. And And the other piece of this is that, you know, it's okay, well why should it be a discretionary grant? And part of the reason for that is, as Patty has pointed out, right, all the states are at different places with respect to this issue.
They have different, animals, they have different things going on in terms of, public land. They have different things going on in terms of, are your primary travel corridor along riverine systems or are they, you know, across, sagebrush steppe. So part of the reason for making this happen is to ensure that. No matter where your state is, this funding will meet you where you are. And one of the beautiful things about it is that it's not just for construction projects. If you are a little bit behind on this issue in your state, you can actually apply for conducting a statewide study of where wildlife vehicle collision and all connectivity hotspots so that you're able to prioritize where you need to invest, again, this very scarce transportation funding. So we were absolutely thrilled, when Representative Zinke and my own home district, I'm in Bozeman, Montana, as I said, and the Representative Beyer from where I was born, in Virginia. So just really thrilled to see, two people with very different perspectives come together on telling people this is important. Uh, it's important to make it permanent, and it's important to make it bigger. So that's what we're hoping, we're. Hearing that, you know, the current Congress is trying very hard to reauthorize, the current law before it expires on September 30th So we'll see what happens on that.
[00:51:00] Patty Cramer: Yeah, there's, you know, as scientists, we get a little hesitant to get involved in politics, but we have to, that's the bottom line. We need to be telling our state representatives,at the federal level that we want them to support, the Zinke-Beyers, amendment to the Wildlife Crossing Pilot Program that make it a permanent program.
So there's a house bill out there to help get this more permanent and a lot more money. So we need to be contacting our state representatives and senators. That's one thing that we need to do, but I once worked in Texas and I said, who out there in Texas is pushing you to do something for wildlife?
And they said, no one. And I was like, bingo. And so that's really important too, if you work for a nonprofit and you don't have a problem being an advocate, writing letters, creating, citizen campaigns and nonprofits to put pressure on the DOT, write letters to your editor, take p hotos and post them on social media.
Anything you can do to bring up the, pressure basically to get things to happen. And the money is out there now thank you in part to what Renee's done, and now it's just a matter of getting your DOT to not just study the problem, which is we've got a lot of studies but we've gotta get them to actually put the structures out there now.
[00:52:10] Ed Arnett: Well, that's a great crescendo to the policy needs, the meet the demands. And I think we could ask for the moon and hope for a piece of earth on this one. And we need, really need the moon, right? demand is so much higherthan the, the available funds. But if we can get this program permanently authorized and funded to meet the demands, at least a higher level of the demands, I think it's a huge win. It's a huge win for people. It's a huge win for wildlife and conservation broadly on this issue. So thanks to you both for being here to talk about it.
And this is just one thing The Wildlife Society is doing. We've got a cover story coming out in our magazine. We've got some articles on the web uh, making a big push, for the permanent authorization of this incredibly successful program. And thanks to you both for all the work you've done, both on the ecology side, but also on the policy side.
[00:53:04] Katie Perkins: Thanks for joining us on the Our Wild Lives Podcast. If you're ready to dive deeper into the world of wildlife conservation or grow your personal network, visit us at wildlife.org. Follow @TheWildlifeSociety on social media and subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss out on a new episode. We'll catch you next week with more stories from the wild.