The challenge
A busy highway through a national park was killing elk, deer and bears and cutting habitat in two.
The case
As Parks Canada widened the Trans-Canada Highway through Banff National Park from 1981 onward, it added roadside fencing and crossing structures in phases. The park now has 44 crossings, six overpasses and 38 underpasses, plus 82 km of fencing. Monitoring since 1996 has made it the longest-running wildlife crossing research program in the world, and by 2012 large mammals had used the crossings more than 150,000 times. Parks Canada reports that fencing has cut wildlife-vehicle collisions by more than 80%, and by more than 96% for elk and deer. An early before-and-after study by Clevenger and colleagues found ungulate road deaths fell by 80% after fencing, even as traffic grew.
Why it worked
Fencing keeps animals off the road and the crossings give them a safe way through; neither works well alone. Long-term monitoring built the evidence that let the model spread to other countries.
Sources
- Parks Canada. Wildlife crossing structures and research, Banff National Park.
- Clevenger, A.P., Chruszcz, B. & Gunson, K. (2001). Highway mitigation fencing reduces wildlife-vehicle collisions. Wildlife Society Bulletin 29: 646–653 (Conservation Evidence summary).
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