Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Time for a TurnaroundWell, my friends, things are finally looking up, and good timing, too, since I’m sure you’re all sick of me bitching. Recent bike build, including wheels… fun! In what feels like a fairly short time, I’ve come from sitting around … Continue reading → […]
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- Time for a Turnaround
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8-foot-high wildlife fence tries to separate cars from beasts
A herd of elk wanders through Estes Park on Monday to the delight of tourists | Walt Hester, Estes Park Trail Gazette
The Colorado Department of Transportation will begin installing an 8-foot-high wildlife fence along Colo. 82 between Glenwood Springs and Carbondale to keep elk and other animals from wandering onto the road, according to the Aspen Times.
That section of highway — part of the connection between Aspen to I-70 — has earned the dubious distinction of having one of the worst rates of vehicle-animal collisions in the entire state. There were 39 such accidents in 2005, the last year data was taken.
The project will also include six wildlife escape ramps — earthen berms that allow animals a way to jump down off the road without letting them hop back up.
The wildlife fence may reduce animal-vehicle collisions, but it doesn’t solve the larger problem of habitat fragmentation, some environmentalists say. In Colorado, swaths of valuable forest and wilderness lands have been sliced up by busy roads, keeping animals from safely using all the available resources.
Keep reading after the jump to find out about proposed wildlife bridges on I-70 and what Boulder County is doing to help elk cross the road (and make it to the other side).
The Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project has for years been proposing a solution to this for I-70, which cuts across the White River National Forest at Vail Pass, separating the Holy Cross and Eagles Nest Wilderness areas.
A computer-generated rendering of a proposed wildlife bridge | restoretherockies.org
The environmental group is lobbying for a massive grass-covered wildlife bridge that would span the interstate, presumably allowing elk, moose, deer and bears safely cross the road.
Wildlife advocates also hope endangered lynx — which were reintroduced in Colorado in 1997 — will use the bridge. Fourteen of the 218 reintroduced lynx have so far been killed by cars, and several of those were near Vail Pass where the proposed bridge would be built.
(If you go to the ecosystem project’s Web site, you cam actually take a virtual tour of the proposed bridge, looking at the crossing from both the animal’s and the driver’s perspective.)
This concept has been tried in Banff National Park in Canada, and Montana is now building the first U.S. version outside of Evaro.
Boulder County is also trying to help elk cross the road safely. The Parks and Open Space Department wants to build flashing lights along U.S. 36 between Boulder and Lyons that would be triggered when an elk steps onto the roadway.
“The elk herd that’s up on Heil Ranch is really pretty spectacular in that it’s the one elk herd in northern Colorado that migrates all the way from the Continental Divide down to the (Eastern) Plains each year,” said Ron Stewart, director of the county open space program.
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.
More wildlife posts on BigGreenBoulder:
Steamboat bear cubs sent to rehab
When eagles die: National Eagle Repository is the eagle morgue
