Tapping Creativity in Wildlife Crossing Competition

December 17, 2010

Design by Janet Rosenberg & Associates

In a first-ever international competition, designers from all over the world were asked to imagine solutions to the age-old problem of moving wildlife across the landscape while keeping them out of harm’s way on our highways. Judges for the ARC International Wildlife Crossing Infrastructure Design Competition have narrowed it down to just five finalists vying to design a “next generation wildlife crossing” to be built at West Vail Pass on I-70 in Colorado.

Thousands of animals are killed each year while trying to cross Colorado’s highways, including elk, deer and mountain lions. And across the country, more than 200 people are killed and 26,000 are injured in wildlife-vehicle collisions annually. Estimates suggest these accidents cost Americans more than $8 billion every year. Wildlife crossings that funnel animals over or under traffic are an effective method to preventing animals from darting across busy roads, protecting their lives and ours without restricting natural movement.

A night-vision camera captures a black bear using a wildlife underpass in Montana.

Contest finalists were chosen from submissions from more than 100 design firms worldwide, each showing innovation and creativity. One design by Janet Rosenberg and Associates (above) features a bright red bridge intended to attract the interest of drivers as they pass under, yet remain unremarkable to color-blind mammals as they pass over.

A jury consisting of internationally acclaimed experts in landscape architecture, engineering, architecture, ecology and transportation will announce the winning design team on January 23, 2011. Trisha White, director of Defenders’ Habitats and Highways campaign, told Wall Street Journal that those officials must do more than ooh and aah over the entries; she would like them to work on keeping highways out of habitat in the first place. “Wildlife bridges are fine where habitat is irreversibly fragmented,” she said, but “the bigger issue is those future roads….Can we please make better decisions on where to put them?”