Banff National Park of Canada

Park Management

Trans-Canada Highway Twinning

The Banff Wildlife Crossings Project Report, 2002

ONE-OF-A-KIND PROJECT

Highway mitigation measures have been designed to reduce the impacts of roads on wildlife. Highway mitigation in Banff National Park, Alberta, is the only large-scale complex of wildlife mitigation passage structures in the world.

There is no other location with as many and diverse types of wildlife crossing structures or accompanying data on wildlife distribution, movement and ecology. Besides having exceptionally diverse forms of wildlife crossing structures (5 designs) set in the landscape over two distinct time periods (recent structures built in 1997, and older structures built in the mid-1980s), Banff mitigation research can boast of having the world's longest, year-round monitoring program and most information on passage use by wildlife. This alone has allowed the mitigation research in Banff to be on the leading edge of investigations regarding the effectiveness of highway mitigation passages in maintaining landscape connectivity.

Table of Contents

PROJECT DESCRIPTION & STUDY AREA

• Mitigation measures

• Road-related mortality
• Monitoring of wildlife crossing structures

• Wildlife crossing structures

• Highways and wildlife in the mountain parks

EMERGING PRINCIPLES OF ROAD ECOLOGY

RESEARCH

• Summary of wildlife use
• Annual wildlife crossing structure use by carnivores
• When do animals use the overpasses?
• Do animals prefer wildlife overpasses to underpasses?

• Why do animals choose to cross at certain crossing structures?
• How do small mammals get across the highway?

• What animals are dying on the highways?
• What are the characteristics of wildlife road-kills?
• What are the characteristics of small animal road-kills?

• Do fences reduce road-kill?
• Unburied vs. buried fences – Which works better at keeping animals off the highway?

• Is road mortality reduced?
• Do Wildlife Crossing Structures work?
• How to interpret wildlife crossing data

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

FOR MORE INFORMATION

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

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