Roads and Wildlife

Acceleration

With momentum from the conference and support from MaineDOT and Beginning with Habitat, this spring Maine Audubon released a new conservation guide outlining how Maine’s community planners, public works departments, and transportation experts can maintain and sometimes even improve Maine’s wildlife habitats.

According to Sandra Jacobson of the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, a national expert on road ecology, Conserving Wildlife On and Around Maine's Roads is one of only a few publications in the U.S. that succinctly educates the general public about roads and wildlife. She plans to use it around the country.

The first part of the conservation guide explains what roads mean for
wildlife: habitat fragmentation and loss, chemical contamination, collisions, invasive species.

“Quite simply, the impact on some wildlife is disastrous,” said Charry.
While roads represent only one or two percent of the national landscape, their impact extends to 20 percent. Over time, habitat disruption can result in decreased populations of sensitive species.

Fragmented habitat keeps young animals from dispersing, which leads to a loss of genetic diversity. At the worst, roads can cause species to become locally or even regionally extinct.

"The good news,” said Charry, “is that moving people across Maine doesn't have to cost wildlife so dearly."

The second part of Maine Audubon's new conservation guide shows how, with careful engineering and land-use planning, Maine’s state, regional, and local organizations can enhance public safety and reduce impacts to wildlife habitat while planning, constructing, and maintaining roads and highways.

The work is already underway: MaineDOT routinely uses Beginning with Habitat data to screen road projects, as well as field visits to verify the natural resources present at project locations.

For large projects, such as the highway bypasses around Gorham and Presque Isle, the agency studies not just the roadway but the entire transportation corridor, adjusting the final road alignment where possible to minimize impacts on wildlife.

Where it can’t avoid impacting important habitat, DOT offsets the negative effects by conserving or restoring other sites of similar ecological value. 

Maine Audubon’s new conservation guide also includes an insert on wildlife crossing structures, i.e., underpasses, overpasses, and special culverts like the one MaineDOT is building on Route 117, which allows small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and even brook trout to move safely between habitats.

Wildlife crossing structures shouldn’t be used to justify inappropriately located new roads, but retrofitting existing roads, often with minor changes, presents a huge opportunity to reconnect and maintain habitats.

"The first rule is to locate roads in the appropriate places,” said Charry.
“But, in the right spot, wildlife crossings can allow animals to safely cross existing roads.”

Next: The Road Ahead >>