Canada built bridges for bears, and the bears used them.
So did wolves, cougars, elk, moose, lynx, wolverines, bighorn sheep, black bears, deer, and almost everything else trying to cross one of the busiest highways in the Rockies.
The Trans-Canada Highway cuts through Banff National Park for 82 km. For decades, it did what highways do: split habitat in half, severed migration routes, isolated populations, and turned animal movement into roadkill.
So Parks Canada tried something that sounded ridiculous to a lot of people at the time: they built wildlife bridges and tunnels.
They look nice, but they're far from a decoration. Forested overpasses wide enough for grizzlies and elk. Dark underpasses for cougars and black bears. Fencing along the highway to keep animals off the pavement and guide them toward safe crossings.
At the time, critics called it a waste of money and editorials opined that animals would never use them.
Fortunately, animals don't read opinion pieces. Since monitoring began, wildlife have used Banff’s crossings more than 250,000 documented times.
Grizzlies took years to trust them. Elk started testing them while they were still under construction. Different species chose different designs: grizzlies and elk tended to prefer wide, open overpasses, while cougars and black bears often used narrower underpasses.
The results were not subtle. Wildlife-vehicle collisions dropped by more than 80% overall. For elk and deer, they dropped by more than 96%.
Banff now has one of the most studied wildlife crossing systems on Earth, and countries around the world have looked to it as a model.
I want everyone to know that the Croatian tourism board has made attempts to find out who the couple is so they can help them visit Croatia (of course I helped them track the couple down)
Magic of the World Cup
@heyyguido It’s one of the reasons I don’t use any of these apps. Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, etc. It’s just a new way for tech bros to exploit the desperate. And they found a way to make the workers take all of the risk and get none of the rewards.
This is a lovely tribute to Canadian soccer star Ismael Kone whose leg was broken in the game against Qatar. Kudos to the Nike store on Robson Street in downtown Vancouver. 👏
This is what I have been waiting to see. Not only have the Blues played well today, they kept the foot on the gas right to the end. Something we never saw under Voss.
#AFLBluesEagles