Wildlife Crossing along Highway 29, Fakahatchee Strand - Has a secondary wildlife bridge (white sand area) that crosses a canal leading to the underpass with fencing.

Roads as a barrier to animal movement, are considered one of the major determinants of functional connectivity across our landscapes. The use of wildlife highway crossing structures at noted intersections with greenway linkages (habitat corridors - rivers, streams, lake edges, wetalnds, certain upland areas, etc.) offers a method to reduce transportation-related, wildlife mortality and restore connectivity to the landscape. Road projects at many scales (National, state, regional or local) need to pay more attention to designing for the maintenance of wildlife movement throughout our communities.  Below is a growing list of resources that may help your community to better plan for continued wildlife connectivity.

1. East Collier County Wildlife Movement Study- SR 29, CR 846, and CR 858 Wildlife Crossing Project - Final Report.   (Large File - Approximately 25 MB - But worth it.   Download is from the UCF Spice Lab and other publications of interest are also available)

SUMMARY _ Roads are one of the greatest threats to wildlife. Especially in areas with high traffic volume, wildlife crossing structures are needed at carefully selected locations along roads in order to allow wildlife to successfully cross highways and maintain connectivity and gene flow within and among populations. Design of crossing structures can benefit from data on unsuccessful crossing locations, but whenever possible should be combined with data on successful crossing locations and a broader look at the landscape context of the crossing, including the adjacent topography, vegetation, and land use.

To determine candidate sites for wildlife crossing structures to maintain/restore large-scale functional landscape connectivity for Florida panthers and other wildlife by monitoring and analyzing wildlife movement patterns along the SR 29, CR 846, and CR 858 highway corridors adjacent to designated stewardship areas.

2.  US 331 WILDLIFE IMPACT STUDY. Final Report. September 2005, by: Daniel J. Smith, Ph.D., Reed F. Noss, Ph.D., Davis-Shine Professor of Conservation Biology, University of Central Floridaand, Thomas S. Hoctor, Ph.D., Research Scientist, GeoPlan? Center Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Florida.  Part 1 (Intro), Part 2 (Main Body), Part 3 (Appendix), and Part 4 (Appendix).

US 331 is a major two-lane highway that bisects the combined Eglin-Nokuse conservation area.  The average annual daily traffic level is about 11,000 vehicles. Rapid growth and development in the coastal areas of Walton County have recently highlighted the need to widen the road to four lanes for hurricane evacuation purposes. The authors used a comprehensive approach that employed several methods to determine the current and potential impacts of US 331 on wildlife resources in the Nokuse-Eglin habitat corridor in Walton County, Florida. These methods included roadkill and track surveys, mark-recapture and existing culvert wildlife use studies, and GIS analysis of habitat types and configuration. The study used each method to evaluate road impacts on different taxa and used this multi-species approach to determine effects of the road on presence and movement behavior for suites of wildlife (e.g., primarily carnivores, selected herptiles, and small mammals).

• Good publication links available from the The Road Ecology Center at the University of California, Davis integrates ecological sciences, engineering, and social sciences to study the interactions between roads and the surrounding natural and human environment, and to develop sustainable transportation solutions that are environmentally and socially friendly.

• Articles on Wildlife and Transportation
• Principles for Planning/Designing Transportation Infrastructure Through or Near Sensitive Areas
• Federal Transportation Project Planning - Wildlife and Ecosystems - AASHTO Center for Environmental Excellence.  The ESA and the Federal planning process: ESA, Consultations with Federal Agencies, Ecosystem Preservation.
• French Critter Crossing Video - Passages Proteges Pour Animaux - An innovative means to get wildlife across a highway safely?
• Monitoring Wildlife Use and Determining Standards for Culvert Design. By Daniel Joseph Smith, Florida Department of Transportation contract # BC 354-34, October, 2003. CulvertDesignFDOT_BC354_34_rpt.pdf