Raise your hand. If you're ready for 30 minutes filled with success,
stories and hope today, I talked to Dr.
Liz Hillard with the Wildlands network about the pigeon river Gorge I 40
corridor.
You'll learn how groups like Wildlands are teaming up with state and federal
departments of transportation to redesign bridges and other barriers to
accommodate wildlife based on extensive data collected on wildlife movements and
impediments over the years.
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Liz Hillard is a senior wildlife biologist for Wildlands network and help lead
and manage the study design implementation analysis and report writing for Rhode
ecology research focused on the important pigeon river Gorge,
interstate 40 corridor near great smokey mountain national park in
North Carolina and Tennessee.
She also works to build partnerships and engage the public in wildlife habitat
con activity and conservation efforts throughout the Southern and central
Appalachian region.
Liz currently serves on the board and as the secretary for North Carolina
chapter of the wildlife society.
We all know, and we've been hearing cuz it is out in the news.
Now that detrimental effects of roads on wildlife. And while, you know,
tens of millions of birds, reptiles,
amphibians and mammals are killed per year on roads in the United States,
this wildlife mortality from roads or what we call roadkill is
just one part of, of the issue. So roads cause habitat fragmentation,
and can hinder the movement behavior of wildlife,
such as dispersal and migration and more generally disrupt wildlife
movement and access to resources such as food inmates.
So disrupting key ecological processes that are important for survival.
And so now we have all of this information and for the last 20, 30 years,
folks have really been working on solutions and those solutions,
as far as the impacts of roads,
go have been creating wildlife over and underpass structures
in the last five to 10 years.
So many of these projects we see mostly happening out west,
starting to happen here in the east, but examples of, of true successes,
not only funneling animals to potential crossings with fencing,
but excluding the wildlife from the roadway.
And so this is important, you know,
to reduce wildlife vehicle mortality,
but also there's human safety issue involved here with our larger mammals.
So we see the dots and wildlife agencies and
groups like ours. Non-for-profit organizations that do research and science,
you know, all coming together to try to reduce, uh,
vehicle collisions for wildlife,
but also increase human safety on the roadways as we're understanding this
issue. And so, for example, in Wyoming, around 2015,
we hear about them putting in six wildlife underpasses in two wildlife
overpasses in a critical migration area.
And that increased wildlife connectivity,
reducing prong hoard vehicle collisions by a hundred percent and mule deer
vehicle collisions by 78%.
So we're just seeing by collecting the information before and after we're seeing
these being implemented and, and big successes. One of my favorites, uh,
examples is just in the last couple years on interstate 64 in
Virginia researchers found that incorporating, uh,
a mile of eight foot fencing at two road structures that are already there,
a box culvert and a river bridge,
not specific for wildlife by fencing and funneling animals to those and
fencing them off the roadway.
It reduced Whitetail deer collisions by 96% and
88% at these two structures. Wow. And so,
so we're just seeing these big numbers and through time, you know,
just a lot of positives that putting these structures on the landscape in the
correct places are really successful for, for the connectivity aspect.
So it's an exciting time and, you know,
folks are seeing these projects out there.
And so there's a lot of support and interest.
Is that why maybe,
or one of the reasons why we're seeing more and more of these projects because
that data on white two deer collisions is a very just plain
human safety issue. It just seems like highway departments and states,
uh, and federal money would flow towards statistics like that.
Um, without having to get into the weeds about all the great benefits, uh,
you don't have to sell 'em on all of the other things,
if that one economic and human safety issue is a driving
factor behind money for these projects, or am I reading that right?
No, I, it, it is us knowing more and,
and what it comes down to too is the economic cost of these
vehicle collisions. There's been numbers crunched on how much it costs,
you know, statewide looking at insurance costs,
injuries to human life. And, and that's a huge figure as well.
So I think it's an intersection of, yeah,
a lot of times the policy or the funding that goes into these is,
is maybe less focused on the, the connectivity, ecological aspect,
but really on the human safety portion and economic cost.
And so we're taking this opportunity to, to reconnect while,
while these there's kind of some synergy out there for,
for multiple partnerships.
Well,
that's about all of the administrative talk that my audience would tolerate
so, uh,
we'll have to move on to the really fun stuff like connectivity stories.
What kinds of things have you seen that really give you hope? Uh,
once things are in place and wildlife start using these crossings.
I'm excited when these projects,
we see that they're planned for a specific wildlife,
usually a large charismatic species important. Usually for migration,
they have these large home ranges, so they need a lot of resources.
Habitat connectivity is important,
but what I really like to see is when these go in and they actually help some of
these smaller species where the roadways are true barriers.
And so we see a connectivity of diverse, uh, diversity from,
you know, our smaller, lesser knowns,
but true connectivity and ability for populations on both sides
of, of major roadways to interact, disperse, their genetics,
you know, really restore from being fragmented to isolated population.
So I like seeing the diversity of wildlife using these structures when they've
just been pinpointed for maybe a Whitetail deer mule deer.
Yeah. The camera stuff is fascinating. I'm sure many of our listeners have,
uh, tuned into, uh, a lot of those, uh,
wildlife cams. And it really is exciting. And I, you can feel the excitement,
um, from people who are studying certain species or, you know,
just general wildlife movements, um, in recently reconnected areas,
not just, just over underpasses, but just connectivity in general.
And the delight in their, in their voices is it's palpable. It's like, wow,
look at that. Nobody would've expected.
I think it was a wildlife crossing where we discovered the coyote
and the Badger working together. Are you familiar with that? I'm sure you are.
Yes. Yes. The safe passages folks. Yes. What,
what a gem and we've had some of those two, um,
I didn't wanna jump the gun with the pigeon river Gorge project,
but I think my favorite crossing we saw there was,
um, an elevated metal culvert, right? We're in a steep Gorge,
mountainous terrain. And a lot of times the flow water under the interstate,
it's a large metal pipe. And you know,
sometimes these are bed on the ground where animals to get in them.
But this part of the culvert that we're focused on with a camera,
we have both the entrance and exit. Uh,
we see a female Bobcat jump into the,
the culvert and she, you see her flag,
her tail as a,
and she is flagging her tail for her young kitten to come up
and her young kitten scrambles up there and they pass safely under the
interstate using a metal covert to move water. It's, it's exciting.
And I mean to add anecdotally a project that, uh,
I got to work on this summer, and we're just in the process of,
of trying to finish up the project. We have a couple more months of monitoring.
I have been so excited because we got an opportunity in gorgeous state park
here in North Carolina.
They put a couple small culverts under a road that they were building for a
visitor center and they were built for timber rattlesnakes in the area.
Uh, important research in the area.
Connectivity is important for basking sites to NA dens. And,
and this is just a hotspot for those animals. And they just,
about 15 years ago, put in three,
I would say two by two foot concrete culverts under a, a not very used roadway.
And I got the opportunity to monitor tho those this summer and warn my
summer technician that I thought this could be really boring as we're
just doing TimeLapse photos and motion imagery,
but we detected almost 20 different species of wildlife
using these from Bobcats and red Fox and gray Fox to,
uh, wood rats and bats and, uh, and snakes,
uh, a diversity of snakes. So in, in general,
and those have been out there for a while,
just seem really successful creating these paths of re least resistance, uh,
that provide some cover for wildlife to cross these roadways,
no matter how big or small.
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Thanks so much for your support.
So the pigeon river Gorge project, let's, let's talk about that.
Give us an overview of what that is. I mean,
this isn't just a wildlife crossing. It's a bunch of things. I mean,
and culverts that even bats use. That's crazy. I had never heard that before.
yeah, I think they might have been feeding in there on all of the,
the insects in there. But, um, so I think that some of the bat,
the bat use of that structure,
but an important thing to mention when we talk about wildlife over and
underpasses being placed on the landscape is road ecology research.
So understanding wildlife along the roadway,
their patterns and processes, that's Rhode ecology research,
and it is necessary to identify, you know,
the placement of these wildlife structures along a given stretch of highway.
And so that's really the introduction to the pigeon river Gorge project,
multiple agencies.
And non-for-profits came together and started talking in 2017 and 2018 about how
this section of interstate 40,
that kind of runs along great smokey mountain national park.
And then we have important national forest lands to the Northeast.
We're having a lot of bear mortality in the area and our group
Wildlands network with national parks con conservation association,
the national park service and the North Carolina wildlife
resource commission all got together and started discussing,
got funding and decided we wanna really focus some research to
identify where these wildlife activity,
hot spots and mortality spots are along this roadway.
So we could identify how to mitigate the effects of this road and
put in solutions for increasing connectivity. And also again,
that human safety issue. And for this project,
we focused on black bear, white tail deer and elk specifically.
So is there any way to describe the scope either with the project you're working
on now or, uh, with other things that you've studied at other areas,
just how much wildlife we're talking about, you know,
this area of concern is of concern for a reason. And,
and I imagine one of the main triggers was just all the mortality on the,
on the roadways.
Just these things become apparent from D O T statistics in
some, uh, ways, right. And yes,
but like when you're talking about a complex of solutions, you know,
uh, that will show up for all of this,
what kind of size and scope are we talking about in terms of just wildlife
numbers that are going to, uh, be protected and saved?
I, I think overall it's just hard to come up with a number here,
cuz that same point wildlife are being killed on the roadway,
but how is it really influencing the,
the populations that have been fragmented or isolated on a whole so
specific numbers? I don't have those, but I can say, you know,
we have this whole 28 mile span of,
of roadway that we wanna focus on and we've got great smokey mountains,
national park, you know,
on one side in one of the most ecologically diverse places in
north America in the world. And we have just as important,
large federal protected lands on the other side of this road.
So the long term effects I think are just greater than the, the numbers,
but in the time and this, this is why I don't have great numbers for you either.
It's hard to get at how many animals are actually being killed along the
roadway. One, they move, they don't stay there.
And then the only information we tend to get as researchers are collision
records from state troopers, from law enforcement,
sometimes maintenance records from the D O T if they're moving carcasses in our
project, we did driving surveys just once a week.
And so we're probably missing a lot of things,
but in the three years that we did driving surveys,
it was almost a hundred bears killed in that, in that time period.
Wow.
So it's hard to tell and things fluctuate and we have high bear mortality years,
you know, they're very tied to the acorn mast here. Um, so if we, and,
and that's of course on a cycle, right, when those are produced.
And so we do know,
and we see more mortality in the Gorge when we have low acorn years because
they're, and this just signifies them moving to find resources,
cuz they're scarce here. When they're moving to find resources,
they're gonna interact with more roads and,
and we're gonna see more bear mortality.
To get really precise, uh, in podcasts world, the words giant enormous,
and holy cow are also acceptable members.
And statistics. Oh, I appreciate that.
That's what I, I was getting, I really start to get the sense that, um,
there's a lot more movement than people might think. And for all these reasons,
the acorn thing is really interesting. Just one example, uh, yeah,
they have to move around when there's a fire,
I imagine on one side or the other of a major thoroughfare,
there's also another reason that you're gonna see a lot of movement.
What are some others that,
that just to give people an idea of like all the different reasons, uh,
wildlife does something it does not want to do yeah. On a loud,
busy highway or underneath, or, you know, just experiencing that.
I'm sure it's much more pleasant staying far away from that stuff for most
wildlife.
I, I would imagine, you know, I,
I often put myself in that situation of thinking, you know,
animal behavior for wildlife biologist, you know,
animal behavior is so difficult to dissect and understand.
It also tends to be very individualized from even animals within a species.
But I worked along,
I've done a lot of wildlife work and I worked along this roadside. You know,
we have wildlife cameras up doing the surveys along the road
and the amount of noise generated from the roadway,
uh, just got my nervous system going the whole time.
I couldn't figure out why I was so nervous out there trying to concentrate to do
things. And I just really imagine like these wildlife,
I've gotta think this is just one long giant monster with the amount of no
noise. It generates. And what's difficult too out there is, you know,
the roadway runs between Knoxville and Asheville, you know,
that piece of roadway and the increased traffic and semi traffic.
And then they put Jersey barriers in the middle.
So that traffic doesn't on either side doesn't run across,
but that often is a four to five foot concrete barrier in the middle of the
roadway. Mm-hmm so, so we're talking about a bit of a wall. Um,
and so it, it was really, and how they to create the road,
blew up the mountain and built the road in there and what was once a pretty
pristine area. Um,
so the implications are just kind of huge when we talk about just even
simple connectivity efforts out there, um,
to get wildlife from the Smokeys and from the forest lands
back and forth.
I think a lot of people are familiar with, uh,
video footage of bison and Grizzlies and Cubs, uh,
sort of, um,
relatively lackadaisically crossing roads in national parks and maybe have an
idea that it's just that simple, you know, that they're,
that they can adapt and that it's not as stressful, uh, as it might seem,
but most people also haven't sat next to a highway for as long as you have with
no motor running and not being inside a car,
but fully exposed to all that stuff that noise, that chaos.
Uh, and so I'm glad you brought that up and described it because, uh, yeah,
most people are just passing through and they don't understand that there's a
big difference for the wildlife.
They really are solving a problem otherwise they would not be there.
Exactly. Like they need to get to that other side. And, and your question of,
of why are, you know, the bear example with the acorns is great,
but then sometimes I don't have an example, you know,
in our research we put GPS collars on,
on 13 elk in the smokes and in the area,
kind of the epicenter of elk activity in great smokey mountain.
National park is in the CATA two valley, which is straight line distance,
only about six kilometers to the interstate.
And we put 13 collars on elk and we
tracked their movements.
And while we only had one animal crossing the roadway in the two years,
we monitored, we had others that, you know,
you see the barrier effect that they come up to the roadway,
they circle around it, they use the area on one side,
they never cross this one female. We actually monitored her for,
for three years. She crossed the interstate 107 times.
And every year it was the same pattern in the early kind of
spring time. She'd leave the Catucci valley where the whole herd is.
And she went and went on her own foray and she was finding a place to have
her calf, the K Elks go off. And, and when folks asked them why over there.
So she crossed the interstate at road grade. So at the road crossing,
she had to navigate that,
but she also used a bridge to move vehicles under,
under the interstate, which is also where the Appalachian trail crosses.
Um, it's it's right at the North Carolina Tennessee border.
And it's where the Appalachian trail is.
And we had some synergy in tracking her with our GPS colors,
but then we're monitoring these structures with cameras and you see her come
back and,
and bring her calf back to the valley using that bridge and also crossing at
road grade. So three years in a row,
this animal left in the spring had her calf came back in early fall,
bringing her calf with her. And I, I don't know how she's navigated to do this.
I think in the first year we thought she should have had a calf and she didn't,
but we were hadn't monitored her yet. And in the, in the three years we did,
she seemed to successfully do that.
And I don't know why she wanted to be over there,
but my simple answer is space and, and we all need and want that. Right.
Yeah. But we were just talking, uh, uh,
off mic about that at the beginning here,
how much we both enjoy space and people like us do. Um,
one can only imagine when you're born in that kind of space,
how much you cherish it. And it's the only thing you pretty much primarily know.
Yes. Some of them seem braver than others, some species do other, you know,
there are some extraordinarily sensitive species. What kind of work,
uh, have you been involved with or studied, um,
where the challenges are much, much greater to you?
Sometimes can't just build it and they will come, is,
is the case for some species, right.
Right. That is, that is the case.
And I think the focus there would be more on, um, aquatic,
connectivity, um, something that gets a lot less, you know, focus.
And if we imagine here in the mountains or where we are now,
where water is often being needing to be conducted under roadways,
well that also fragments, uh, hydrologic processes,
but there's often step ups. These structures, these box culverts,
these metal culverts. They often don't have a natural bottom.
They create step up.
They don't have structure in them for fish species or tic species
to be navigating or go going through there.
And so in some of our pigeon river Gorge work,
we've started talking to hydrologists and fish biologists, um,
who readily will tell you, this is a huge,
huge issue when you disconnect watersheds to
their main source through, through creating roadways or,
or other human development.
There's a whole other diverse group of species in the aquatic realm that get
little attention and, and, you know, really spatially.
Sometimes these are smaller areas where there should really be a focus.
And so I, I think that's, that's a focus of road,
ecology and connectivity. That's, you know, trying to get the word out there.
There's great projects being done, but I think to,
to your audience of folks out there, um, aquatic connectivity is kind of huge.
Yeah. And even here, uh,
you and I have talked about the charismatic mega critters and, uh,
for the most part until now,
and very glad that you brought that up because that usually does get glossed
over even in our company. Well,
not when we're all just sitting around a campfire,
we geek out on newts and everything else.
Exactly.
We're unusual. I think in that respect.
Mm-hmm, yeah, us too. But we, we do latch onto these, uh,
animals where we have, you know, multiple partnerships and, and,
and support and can kind of drum up support for, for projects like this and,
and get a real commitment to, to trying to get mitigation on the ground, to,
to increase wildlife connectivity.
What is the big vision? What do you see in the future? Um,
let's go five or 10 years down the road. Um,
what makes you really happy and hopeful about the work you're doing today and
where it's leading?
Ah, yeah. Uh, there is a lot of hope. Um,
so we have completed our research study.
Now the research itself got, got pretty large. So,
you know, you heard me mention, we GPS collared elk.
We also had cameras monitoring along the road side to look at animal activity.
We monitored these culverts and bridges that currently exist to see if they're
being used. And we compiled all this wildlife vehicle collision information,
and we really divided the road into segments and, you know,
essentially ranked them to understand, you know,
where these high activity areas are, where animal activities high,
all to come up with.
We have 20 recommendations within the Gorge based on our research findings.
And what that really looks like is we want a linkage system from
one side to the other,
the interstate multiple opportunities for wildlife to
cross under the roadway.
And so what that looks like is we wanna retrofit some existing structures.
Um, so culverts that are too small or where we see a lot of vehicle collisions,
but there's an opportunity we wanna retrofit those.
Maybe they need to be larger, less noisy, um, fencing to those.
We also want a few dedicated wildlife overpasses in the region.
That's, that's kind of the big vision where we're seeing success and, you know,
important relationships is with our department of transportation partners.
So early on in this research project,
they reached out and told us three, five, excuse me,
five of the bridges you're monitoring in the pigeon river Gorge on the
North Carolina side are slated to be replaced.
So they're gonna be putting in all new structures and,
uh, at Wildlands network,
we saw this as an opportunity and came up with how would the replacement
of these structures that are already gonna be there.
We imagine they'll be there for another 60, 80 years.
How could they incorporate wildlife passage into these
structures? And so I'm really happy to say that first bridge that was slated for
replacement, that we provided recommendations, a larger span.
So wildlife can have their own almost like Greenway area to move through and,
uh, noise reduction,
some fencing to guide to the structures and exclude from the roadway.
Those have all been put in place in this first bridge replacement,
which is the harm inden bridge.
And so that's just a huge win on our end. Um, you know,
shout out to our North Carolina department of transportation partners who really
took our recommendations through a little relationship
building and really thought we can do this and apply this.
We wanna see these benefits as well, you know, not only for the safety issue,
but, but we're all, we're all bought in and,
and proud of the wildlife in our region. So it's,
it's been the community coming together on that, that level.
So that would be a, a big, the big win.
Now the research report itself,
it would just came out in July and it really pinpoints with a lot of detail, uh,
the areas and, and how, and we're proud of that.
And that's where we're drumming up legislative support, um,
and funding. And, you know, so, so there's this next phase of,
of trying to get these implemented. We, we have such great research, you know,
due to having great partnerships and support. Uh,
and now we're moving forward in the phase of let's get some of these
implemented.
It feels like there's a ground swell and there has been for a while and it's
been building.
And it sounds like maybe you're kind of able to capitalize on that,
having a receptive D O T. And you know,
when in other areas we are dealing with wildlife agencies that are not at
all at all receptive to working with us or hearing from us or anything.
Um, it's just refreshing to hear any department of anything the receptive and,
and want to team up on these things.
Do you feel like there's a groundswell of support nationally for this?
Yeah, I, I, I really do. It's been a fun,
it's been a fun part of research to be involved with. And I mean,
myself, you know,
getting to do research and taking it and being able to apply it on the ground
for positive conservation outcomes, but what we're seeing the success of these,
you know, in the numbers I shared early on, I think the departments are too,
and us being able to fill kind of a research gap.
Folks are happy to provide resources, but maybe don't have the capacity.
So I think being able to provide, you know,
this information gap through our research, but I do, I think overall,
I think it goes back to the real issues here beyond the
mortality, along the roadway. It's, it's a larger connectivity. And I think if,
you know, when wildland started in the early nineties, uh,
thinking large landscape connectivity, you know, those were crazy.
It was crazy to think on that scale,
but we see that that's been fully adopted as well.
And I think that understanding how important habitat connectivity is,
uh, everyone else is, is, you know,
accepting that and realizing these roads are such an issue. And,
and that human safety issue, again, it kind of is this synergistic effect.
And beyond just, it's seeming that way, you know,
there's 350 million slated in the transportation bill
for specific wildlife structures.
So there's opportunities now in funding on this federal level, you know,
I think that's, that's what we're seeing too. Uh, is it more focus on that?
Well, yeah, yeah. That, yeah, I think you're right about,
I think you're right about the ground swell. Um, so,
so it's definitely happening. I mean, even in, you know,
I'm not on social media too much, but I'm even seeing it a lot there,
or people really seem to connect with it. Uh,
I think the crossings themselves can be quite visionary, you know, or,
or they really inspire folks to,
to think about a connected landscape to see,
see a bridge specific for wildlife. And I think that has a lot of hope in it.
So I, I, I think that's, that's what the appeal that beyond that they,
they seem to be really effective. They're kind of two birds with one stone,
you know, there's, there's a lot going on there. So it's,
it's an exciting time and it was so exciting to have such, uh,
state agencies excited to, to work with us and, and they've been supportive.
So exciting stuff.
Stretches like the one you're working on that you did all this research on. Um,
there is a lot of those around the country that may probably aren't getting the
kind of attention that, you know,
this stretch has that still need a lot of supporters.
So I would encourage everybody listening to find out about that in your area.
And I would ask, like, to ask you Liz, uh, for people, you know,
first of all, uh, in your area, in that area,
is there anything that people can do that, um,
being geographically at hand might be helpful in support
or projects,
or how would they even find out some pick and shovel things that they could do
in the future? When anything as simple as a culvert needs,
some support or help from volunteers or, uh,
anything digital or anything political that people can do to help and support
this work?
Yeah,
I think first and foremost for the project I've talked about is so
we have a website, um, smokey, safe passage.org,
and here you can, you can get the latest.
So where we're gonna need a lot of folks help is, is sending letters,
contacting their legislative, uh,
branches and offices to support work like this. But also, you know,
in the future,
I imagine there are gonna be apps and services that help others
identify or mark where they're seeing roadkill. Um, it's hard for me in,
in this space to, I'd love for everyone to get out and especially with the,
the turtles and the, um,
amphibians and reptiles crossing the roadway to drive slowly and move things.
But that's, that's also a danger to, to humans,
but I think legislative support sharing, you know,
that beyond the road kill the, the effects of these roads on wildlife.
Um, and, and those would be the general things. I think, um, we do have a,
a donation and support button for the smokey safe passage,
pigeon river Gorge project on this website, uh, with some other, you know,
anecdotes on how you can help. Um,
but I think just having people like recognize the issue,
paying attention, and, and if you're seeing areas of high concentration,
wildlife, and your backyard on your roads, you know, get a,
get ahold of someone regionally or locally, or the wildlife agency, you know,
we, we know these places exist and it's important to know too where the,
the gaps in connectivity might be our protected areas in your region,
too, just map wise and understanding, you know,
if you're in a large public area and where we know there's a lot of wildlife
diversity because of the habitat resources and major roads are,
are impacting those wildlife. I think, you know, just trying to raise the lead,
uh, red flag on, on the, the levels that you're comfortable with.
Um, I think just knowing the real issue.
Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today because, uh,
I've been wanting to talk about this for a long time.
And I feel like we got people caught up in a way that they're not getting in
the, you know, generic news. And, uh,
you've been a great service to all of our listeners today. And thank you so,
so much for all the work that you do and that you plan to continue to do, uh,
for the wild and for connectivity.
Thanks so much, Jack. I, I appreciate the opportunity. I hope everyone, uh,
enjoys this podcast.
Thanks.
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