Posts Tagged ‘wildlife crossings’
The latest numbers from our wildlife camera program
Thanks to all of our supporters and volunteers for another year of successful wildlife camera monitoring in the Tucson Mountains and Oro Valley study areas! See an overview of our Tucson Mountain camera project results HERE and our Oro Valley camera project results HERE.
We have been monitoring wildlife with wildlife cameras in the northern portion of the Tucson Mountains and Avra Valley for four years. To date we’ve seen over 30 species across 23 camera sites, data which helps inform our I-11 work and knowledge about the Tucson-Tortolita Mountain Wildlife Linkage. Javelina have been photographed most frequently, and it is good to see these native seed dispersers out and about! Other notable results in the last year include more badgers, and bobcats with kittens in tow.
In Oro Valley, we have been monitoring east and west of the Oracle Road wildlife bridge and underpass for a total of seven years! We now have excellent comparative data pre- and post- construction of the crossings that were built in May 2016. With 62 species across 49 camera sites (and nearly 78,000 photos!), we are seeing lots of cottontails and quail that are plentiful prey for coyotes, bobcats, and gray foxes. We’ve seen white-nose coati and bighorn, and our resident female mountain lion has appeared again this year several times just west of the wildlife bridge.
We will post more detailed results as we finalize project reports and dive into the fun and useful information these cameras have in store!
New video about Nevada wildlife crossings worth a watch
Our friends at Wildlands Network shared a new short film about wildlife crossings in Nevada – it’s well worth watching! From their email about the film:
“ARC Solutions and the Center for Large Landscape Conservation are delighted to announce the release of (Re)Connecting Wild: Restoring Safe Passage.
This film tells the remarkable story of the decade-long effort by the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) and its partners to improve human safety by re-connecting an historic mule deer migration that crosses over both US-93 and I-80 in rural Elko County, Nevada. Faced with hundreds of motorist crashes involving deer along these two highways, NDOT analyzed carcass and collision data, along with mule deer movement data collected by the Nevada Department of Wildlife, to identify the highest risk areas for deer-vehicle conflicts.
This analysis revealed four priorities, including 10 Mile Summit and HD Summit along US-93, and Silver Zone Pass and Pequop Summit along I-80. Armed with these priorities, NDOT set about planning a series of multi-faceted projects that ultimately resulted in the construction of five new wildlife overpasses and four new wildlife underpasses, plus connective fencing, as well as the integration of four existing vehicular underpasses that today serve as multi-use structures for both motorists and wildlife. Avoiding typical bridge designs, NDOT employed innovative, wildlife-friendly construction methods to reduce costs and construction time while also maximizing wildlife usage and acceptance.
These methods are depicted in a special time-lapse segment, which allows viewers to virtually witness construction of the wildlife crossing structures along I-80. Ultimately, NDOT’s tireless efforts have achieved its primary goal of improving human safety and welfare – as evidenced by the more than 40,000 successful crossings by wildlife at the four priority sites – while at the same time restoring safe passage for migratory mule deer to more than 1.5 million acres of summer and winter habitat.”
YouTube: https://youtu.be/NK-
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/
Coalition comments on proposed changes to the Tortolita Preserve
These mule deer and coyote are using new wildlife underpasses under Tangerine Road. Three more wildlife underpasses such as these are planned for western Tangerine Road. The Coalition hopes any changes to the Tortolita Preserve ensure connections with future wildlife underpasses and nearby core preserve areas such as Tortolita Mountain Park. Photos courtesy Arizona Game and Fish Department.
The Arizona State Land Department and the Town of Marana have recently begun discussions about changes to the Tortolita Preserve. This 2,400 acre preserve was established in consultation, as required by the Endangered Species Act, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as mitigation for habitat disturbance and effects to listed species resulting from the construction of the Dove Mountain development.
On October 9, 2019, the Coalition submitted comments to the Town of Marana with our recommendations on how to move forward with the future of the Tortolita Preserve. We recommend that any changes ensure the connection of the preserve with nearby core preserve areas and planned future wildlife crossings.
The full text of our comments can be found HERE.
“Marana negotiating Tortolita Preserve’s future” – Tucson Local Media (October 16, 2019)
“Neighbors, conservationists closely monitor what’s next in Marana” – KOLD13 (October 18, 2019)
We’ll be updating this post as we learn more or there is additional news coverage on this issue.
Mule Deer Constellations, a new article in the Desert Leaf
This mule deer was captured by our STITZER wildlife camera, monitored by volunteers Lisa Caprina and Doug Vollgraff.
Want to learn lots of interesting facts about the Sonoran Desert’s mule deer? Check out CSDP Conservation Science Director Jessica Moreno’s latest column in the Desert Leaf magazine. In this article, titled “Mule Deer Constellations,” Jessica follows the journey of one mule deer that was collared by the Arizona Game and Fish Department as part of the larger monitoring study of the Oracle Road wildlife crossings. Check out the article HERE to learn more about where this mule deer travels!
The full issue of the Desert Leaf can be found HERE.
Coalition staffer presents on I-10 Safe Passages Project at International Conference on Ecology and Transportation
By Myles Traphagen, Borderland Programs Coordinator, Wildlands Network
Sacramento, California was the location of the tenth biennial International Conference on Ecology and Transportation (ICOET) held September 22 to 26th, 2019. Jessica Moreno, the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection’s Conservation Science Director, presented the “Safe Passages for Wildlife on Interstate-10 within the Rincon-Santa Rita-Whetstone Mountains Wildlife Linkage” project, made possible by a generous grant from the Arizona Game and Fish Department Heritage Fund.
Nearly 600 delegates from 19 countries attended the four-day conference held at the Hyatt Regency directly across the street from the California State Capitol building. The vast array of topics at the conference ranged from camera trapping workshops, wildlife crossing structure design, public policy, and the state of transportation ecology around the globe.
With nearly 4 million miles of roads in the United States, and the ever-increasing paving of new roads globally (estimated to total 16 million miles by 2050), the effects of mechanized human transport on wildlife, biodiversity, and highway safety are staggering. The constant, daily stress exerted upon wildlife and biodiversity by roads cannot be ignored. The Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection is actively addressing this issue through a variety of projects, and the Safe Passages presentation made by Jessica at the ICOET Conference was the final presentation in the Connecting Plans to Action session, for action is our modus operandi.
The 20-mile stretch of Interstate 10 between the Highway 83 and first Benson exit is the focus of our project. It’s obvious to anybody who has driven through this stretch that the numerous drainages and arroyos, like Davidson Canyon and Cienega Creek (which encompass several protected areas and important waters in the eastern Sonoran Desert), provide a natural travel corridor for animals that migrate between the Sky Island mountains north and south of I-10. This area has been a frequent zone of wildlife vehicle collisions. It’s no accident that these unfortunate “accidents” occur, because the Arizona Wildlife Linkages Assessment identified several wildlife corridors that cross right through here. This underscores the perils of the linear infrastructure like roads, railways, power lines and canals that increasingly dominate our modern world.
Now in Phase II, the I-10 Safe Passages project is using wildlife camera monitoring and roadkill surveys, along with community science engagement, to gather species-specific baseline data on wildlife passage rates and roadkill hotspots. We couldn’t do this important work without our dedicated volunteer team of “Desert Roadies” to help us with the driving surveys. Preliminary results, including a black bear mortality on August 23rd at mile marker 289 at Cienega Creek, have already begun to identify optimum locations for wildlife funnel-fencing installation, existing culvert retrofits, and new wildlife crossing structures. These data will inform State and County highway and wildlife officials on where to focus mitigation efforts to improve highway safety and minimize wildlife-vehicle collisions, and to provide justification for project funding.
In the US alone, it is estimated that there are between one and two million large animal wildlife vehicle collisions a year with hundreds of human fatalities as a result. The science of Road Ecology is attempting to reduce these occurrences by using crash analysis and GIS modeling of landscape variables that naturally funnel animals towards point specific places in their daily and seasonal movements. Progress is being made in identifying these places (like along I-10) where the greatest likelihood of wildlife collisions is predicted to occur.
With the data collected from the I-10 Safe Passages Project, we can identify and quantify wildlife vehicle collision hotspots and plan for and modify build-out plans to mitigate and respond accordingly to reduce these conflicts. In the case of the proposed Interstate 11, we support using avoidance and not building it in the first place! In the age of “Super-Commuters,” a term which the Director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife used to describe drivers who spend two hours each way traveling to and from work, we need to rethink our approach to highway construction and proactively mitigate for and modify the design and building of roads. To learn more about how you can help by volunteering or donating, visit us here. Keep an eye out for wildlife and drive slower, safer and less when you can.
CSDP Conservation Science Director Jessica Moreno and Myles Traphagen, Borderlands Program Coordinator with Coalition member group Wildlands Network, at the International Conference on Ecology and Transportation in Sacramento, CA in September 2019.
CSDP Conservation Science Director Jessica Moreno presents on the Coalition’s new I-10 Safe Passages project, funded by the Arizona Game and Fish Department Heritage Fund.
Monitoring results from the Tangerine Road wildlife crossings
Did you know that there are now five wildlife underpasses under Tangerine Road?
As part of a larger project to improve Tangerine Road, five existing drainage structures were enhanced and improved to better accommodate safe wildlife movement across this popular roadway. This is a cost-effective way to increase connectivity across roadways that is less visible to the general public (as compared to a wildlife bridge) but still very important. Construction was completed on these wildlife underpasses in Spring 2018 with the cooperation of the Town of Marana, Pima County, the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD), the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection, and other members of the RTA’s Wildlife Linkages Sub-Committee.
Starting in 2010, the AGFD completed pre-construction monitoring using roadkill surveys. After the underpasses were completed in Spring 2018, the AGFD started a 3-year post-construction monitoring project, including roadkill surveys and monitoring wildlife use of the crossings using wildlife cameras. According to an April 2019 progress report from AGFD:
Between May and September 2010 5,152 road mortalities representing 88 species were documented, helping to identify hot spots for future implementation of fencing and wildlife crossing structures.
[Using this data], the objectives of this construction project were to:
- Increase the size of five drainage structures and modify inlets/outlets to accommodate medium-sized mammals.
- Add funnel fencing at the crossings.
- Conduct habitat establishment evaluations, for three seasons, beginning one year after project completion, to determine whether any adaptive management measures are necessary to improve the effectiveness of the wildlife crossing structures.
Post-construction roadkill surveys began in Spring 2019. An April 2019 progress report primarily includes data from wildlife cameras installed on the underpasses and can be found HERE. A few data points and photos from the report are highlighted below:
Data has been analyzed to January 7th, 2019, this represents two full months of monitoring data for all five structures. A combined total of 1049 crossings by 17 wildlife species have been documented across all 5 structures to date. Coyote, javelina, and bobcat constitute the most commonly recorded species with 475, 365, and 130 crossings respectively, representing 93% of all documented crossings.
Mule deer and coyotes have both successfully crossed Tangerine Road safely using five new wildlife underpasses. These underpasses were created by enhancing existing drainage structures using voter-approved money from the Regional Transportation Authority’s wildlife linkages infrastructure funds. Photos courtesy Arizona Game and Fish Department.
This is exciting news for wildlife in the Tortolita Fan and motorists along Tangerine Road. With the inclusion of wildlife fencing on either side of these five underpasses, wildlife are now being funneled to cross Tangerine Road under the roadway, leading to increased safety for wildlife and motorists.** We will share new monitoring results from AGFD when they release their next progress report on this project sometime in the next year.
Thank you for supporting connected wildlife linkages and wildlife habitat!
**Some observant community members have noted that this wildlife fencing is shorter than the wildlife fencing along Oracle Road. Why is this? The Tangerine Road wildlife fencing was designed for the medium-sized mammals that are most likely to use these smaller culvert wildlife crossings.
Badger, badger! New badger photos and data from our wildlife cameras
For 10 years we have had wildlife cameras on the landscape monitoring important linkages. We first captured photos of badgers in 2012, and they have made consistent, if rare, appearances since. Badgers are an understudied animal in Arizona and we know very little about their status in Pima County. We now have a total of 40 images of badgers across 19 camera sites, with a 27% occupancy rate (the number of cameras that detected badgers versus the total number of cameras out there). We have seen badgers at two sites in the Tucson Mountains study area, and at 8 and 9 sites West and East, respectively, of Oracle Road in Oro Valley. Our partners at Arizona Game and Fish Department confirm that one of the badgers we photographed crossed the wildlife bridge, moving east to west, earlier this year. We are diving into the data to learn more about them in our Sonoran Desert landscape, including a fun look at identifying individuals!
We thought you would enjoy these photo highlights, and a neat look at our preliminary results showing more badger activity during new moon nights than full moon nights. Why do you think badgers might be more active on new moon nights than full moon nights, when it is darkest? Badgers are nocturnal, although females may come out in the day with her young in Spring. They are also fossorial carnivores, meaning they live most of the time underground and are very good diggers. Most of their prey live in burrows as well, including ground squirrels, pocket gophers, packrats, kangaroo rats, and rattlesnakes. Badgers may be appearing on our cameras more often during the new moon for a variety of reasons. One possibility is that badger activity is correlated with prey activity, and conditions that increase hunt success. Are rodents are more active during the dark new moon than the brighter full moon, too? Can badgers, adapted to hunting at night and underground, sense their prey better on dark nights? In science, the best answers lead to more questions!
Many thanks to Pat and Henry Miller for contributing three badger photos from their own camera to our study.
If you haven’t heard it, you may enjoy Petey Mesquitey’s song “The Coyote and the Badger” on KXCI radio!
This graph shows how our wildlife cameras have captured more badger activity during new moon nights than full moon nights. Fascinating!
Photo by our CSI wildlife camera, monitored by Sam Wilbur and Josh Skattum.
Photo by our former FOX wildlife camera, monitored by Judy and Paul Mercer.
Photo by our CSI wildlife camera, monitored by Sam Wilbur and Josh Skattum.
Photo by our DOVE camera, monitored by Gary and Lenora Brown and Steve and Diana Holmes.
Photo by our PEREGRINE camera, monitored by Josh Skattum and Sam Wilbur.
The latest and greatest monitoring results from the Oracle Road wildlife crossings
In March 2019, the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) released their latest monitoring results from the Oracle Road wildlife crossings. AGFD typically releases monitoring results twice a year so we should have an updated monitoring report sometime this fall.
March 2019 AGFD Monitoring Report on the Oracle Road wildlife crossings
Two summary graphs from the report are highlighted below:
This graph shows the total mule deer crossings at both the Oracle Road underpass and bridge. Mule deer started using the bridge almost immediately after construction finished and have been used it steadily ever since (blue line). More recently, mule deer have become more acclimated to using the underpass, with increasing numbers successfully crossing all the way through the underpass since Winter 2018. It is well established that some wildlife species will use wildlife crossings right away with little acclimation while others may take years before they become acclimated and then will start using the crossing regularly.
This graph shows the total crossings by all wildlife species at both the Oracle Road underpass and bridge. Wildlife started using both crossings very soon after construction completed and have been using them steadily ever since. This new connectivity across Oracle Road increases the health of our local wildlife populations by allowing them to reach new home ranges and find mates (which then supports healthy genetic diversity) and also increases the safety of Oracle Road itself with a reduction in wildlife-vehicle collisions. Miles of wildlife fencing was also installed as part of this project – the fencing directs wildlife to the crossings themselves and was designed using the best available science to accommodate a wide range of wildlife species.
Want to learn more about the Oracle Road wildlife crossings, why they are located where they are, how wildlife know to use them, how they were funded, and much more? Our website includes:
- An Overview of the Oracle Road wildlife crossings,
- A long list of Frequently Asked Questions,
- A look at The Big Picture, including existing plans to make sure land on both sides of the crossings stays protected as open space,
- A summary of Monitoring Results (which we will be updating soon!)
New interactive case study about the Oracle Road wildlife crossings
A new interactive case study about the Oracle Road wildlife crossings was just launched through the work of the Desert Landscape Conservation Cooperative. This case study features both a 2-page summary and an interactive map with more detailed information. You can check out the case study at https://arcg.is/09arn8 or look at it in the box below. [In the box below, click on the blue left and right arrows at the bottom to access the different sections of the case study. Within each section, click on the blue “i” in the top right corner to read the narrative about each section.] And thank you for all your support for this innovative project!
Sonoran Desert wildlife linkages featured in Desert Leaf magazine
CSDP Conservation Science Director Jessica Moreno published a new article in the most recent edition of the Desert Leaf magazine. Jessica’s article provides a fantastic summary of the history of wildlife linkages protection in Pima County’s Sonoran Desert, along with anecdotes and reflections on both black bears and Sonoran Desert tortoises and why they both need connected wildlife linkages to thrive.
Like black bears, tortoises have plant-based eating preferences. They also have few natural predators, can roam with compass-like precision and determination over hundreds of miles, and hibernate in the cold months. Tortoises get most of their water from the plants they eat, carrying it in canteen-like bladders. (Handling a tortoise can cause it to become anxious, pee, and thereby lose an entire summer’s water supply.) Roads and development are perilous hazards for them. But with thoughtful planning and community support, the threats posed by these hazards can be reduced or eliminated. In addition, safe crossings and open spaces benefit more than fuzzy bunnies, tortoises, and bears; they provide a beautiful, thriving, and resilient place for us to live.
The full article is available here.
And the full issue of the Desert Leaf magazine can be found at this website.
Great work, Jessica!
