Safe Passages for Wildlife and People

All Episodes

February 1, 2024 • 127 mins

Wildlife and humans have a need to move across the landscape. But our modern modes of travel have put those necessary pathways at odds with one another. Our highways create barriers for animals to carry out the daily movements and seasonal migrations that are necessary for their survival. For people, crossing paths with an animal on the highway is also a threat to our own safety and a cause for collisions that cost around $8 billion in damages in the U.S. every year.

The topic of wildlife-vehicle collisions lies at the literal intersection of human needs and wildlife needs. In this episode, we take a look at how our approaches to this topic can relate to all areas of planning how our human needs and communities advance, in a way that acknowledges our place within our environments. We will hear from members of Yellowstone Safe Passages, a community-guided coalition in Southwest Montana that is taking a holistic approach to mitigate this issue. We will hear from a road ecologist about what this work looks like on the ground and the jaw dropping costs of continued conflict. And a policy expert will share how this topic creates bipartisan engagement and a model for productive legislative action.

In this episode, WE HEAR FROM:

Marcel Huijser, Western Transportation Institute

Liz Fairbank, Center for Large Landscape Conservation

Max Hjortsberg, Park County Environmental Council

Peter Brown, Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation

Erin Sito, Wildlands Network

Members of Yellowstone Safe Passages