By Jessica Moreno
The International Conference on Ecology and Transportation (ICOET) occurs in the U.S. every other year to bring together people who work on ecological issues related to transportation systems, an interdisciplinary field of work also known as “Road Ecology.” This year, the 14th ICOET conference was hosted as a hybrid in-person/virtual event in Denver, Colorado with close to 650 participants and 270 abstracts presented. The conference, which attracts participants from around the world, is organized by the Road Ecology Center out of UC Davis, and the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. It alternates each year with the Infrastructure & Ecology Network Europe (IENE) conference (anyone want to send us all to Prague next September?).
My first experience with ICOET was in 2011 in Seattle, Washington. Even then, Arizona was already taking a lead role in the U.S. with it’s forward-thinking road ecology projects, but it was equally inspiring to see how other states and countries around the world were tackling the problem of connectivity for wildlife and people. I’ve looked forward to this conference ever since, and return each time eager to connect with both familiar faces and new.
Southern Arizona shows up at ICOET
This May, I presented a podium talk titled “Bridging the Great Sonoran Desert Divide,” focusing on the many cooperative partnerships we’ve made to protect connectivity (meaning connected landscapes) for wildlife in the Tucson-Tortolita Mountains Wildlife Linkage in Tucson, AZ. I wasn’t the only one from Arizona either – Kris Gade, Director of Pima County Conservation Lands and Resources was there (and no stranger to ICOET having previously attended this conference when she worked with the Arizona Department of Transportation), as well as Eamon Harrity (Sky Island Alliance) presenting about the U.S. Border Wall impacts to wildlife, and Aaron Mrotek (The Nature Conservancy) checking the conference out for the first time as he launches a new crossing effort near Patagonia, AZ. Karen Lamberton, a transportation planner and the Director of the Sierra Vista Metropolitan Planning Organization attended. And our friend Jeff Gagnon (Arizona Game and Fish Department) was awarded the 2025 ICOET Leadership Award during the Welcome Plenary, which just goes to show how lucky we are in Arizona to have such incredible road ecology experts!
“We lose a football field of open space every 2 minutes in the U.S.” – Ben Goldfarb
Quite a few familiar faces and agencies were notably absent from this conference, despite its record turnout, as federal funding had been pulled and a lot of travel requests were rescinded. Nonetheless, there was an air of camaraderie and determination throughout the week, as well as good natured humor (Bigfoot and Santa Claus made appearances on some of the field trips).
Ben Goldfarb, author of the new book Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, led the Keynote with a very entertaining overview and history of road ecology, as he says, “told to you by a person who learned everything he knows about the topic from the people in this room.” He introduced a new term to me, umwelt, a German word for the experience or perspective of an animal in the world. I won’t quote everything he said in his speech, but I highly recommend reading his new book!
Conference go-ers also took time to acknowledge and celebrate the life of Norris Dodd, who was a global ambassador for wildlife connectivity, most recently working on wildlife crossing projects in South Asia. A retired biologist with the Arizona Game and Fish Department, Arizona Department of Transportation, and AZTEC Engineering, existing and future wildlife crossings built in Arizona, and many worldwide, will have Dodd’s legacy built into them. His expertise, mentorship, and company are greatly missed.
Highlights
Here are a few quick quotes, notes and highlights from my experience at ICOET 2025:
- The road is a visitor that should respect the land. What does it mean for a road to be a visitor?
- Legal innovation is needed. AI self-driving vehicles are only trained to stop for larger-sized animals, basically anything larger than a human toddler.
- First road ecology paper in the U.S. was in 1925, “The Toll of the Automobile” by Dayton and Lillian Stoner.
- Consider timed closures for roads for nocturnal or seasonal migration.
- Noise pollution is a public health problem AND an ecological problem.
- Small urban areas have higher roadkill rates than large urban areas – fewer collisions because of avoidance.
- In CA, an estimated 10% of the deer population is killed every year by vehicles.
- Wildlife-vehicle collisions are a biodiversity crisis and a human safety and wellbeing issue.
- Monitoring crash data – decreases in roadkill hotpots over time without any mitigation means that a decline in the wildlife population is the likely cause (there are fewer crashes because now there are fewer animals).
- Is there any priority on on-site mitigation over off-site? Evaluate if off-site mitigation is enough. Encourage more multi-model in-fill projects.
- Economics of crossing structures: avoided costs make these projects a good idea. The value of an animal’s life is always an underestimate (lost reproductive potential, etc). We use the percent tax funding amount voters approved as part of the benefit analysis. Value and worth to the community applies to the project’s cost-benefit analysis.
- Wildlife crossings for brown tarantulas in Colorado – tunnels under highways are also benefiting small animals and reptiles. *Tarantula Tunnels are adorable.*
Sonoran Desert’s first wildlife bridge featured in short film
Watch the 13 minute film screening of the “Wild Hope” episode that debuted at ICOET 2025, about the making of the LA wildlife crossing over the 101 Freeway. Check out – very briefly at mark 11:50 – the appearance of Beth Pratt with myself and AZGFD Scott Sprague on the Oracle Road Wildlife Bridge!