Join Defenders Ben Prater and Tracy Davids to find out just what safe passage means for the wildlife of North Carolina! “Safe Passage: The I-40 Pigeon River Gorge Wildlife Crossing Project” is a collaborative of 20+ local, state, tribal, and federal agencies who believe it’s possible to balance the needs of native wildlife with the ever-growing human population in East Tennessee and Western North Carolina.
Transcript:
We’re traveling along Interstate 40 and we’re at the start of what we call the Pigeon River Gorge and the river as well as the interstate that follows it sort of bisects two major expanses of public lands. You have the Great Smoky Mountains National Park off on the western side and the Pisgah National Forest to the east. So these are really important reservoirs, for biodiversity, major, large habitats for all kinds of wide ranging and species that travel through and across this corridor. And so this highway is really preventing a lot of that free flowing and movement and that’s why we see a high degree of mortality along the roadway. Everything from deer to black bear to even elk, which have been reintroduced here a few decades ago. Welcome to the Harmon Den exit. This is one of the first wildlife crossing mitigation features that was put in to a bridge repair project. We worked with the North Carolina Department of Transportation so that when they were doing this bridge project, they could incorporate some wildlife features to help both provide safe passage for animals and keep them going under the road instead of over across the road where they can become vulnerable to vehicle strikes, which becomes an issue for motorists safety as well. So we’re going to take a look around and check out a few of the awesome features of this project and show what we’re doing to help provide wildlife crossings here in the Smokies. So this is one of the creative features that we added to this project. This is called a cattle guard or a wildlife guard. And of course, for any hooved animal walking across for this corrugated metal structure is near impossible. But it does, of course, allow the ingress and egress of traffic coming on the on ramps and exit ramps on both sides of the highway. So as cars can move through freely, if an elk or a deer approached this – You can see that car went right across easy enough. As a deer or an elk would approach this, as a hooved animal they’re not going to cross it. Tracy you want to talk about why fencing is important? Absolutely. Fencing is a critical part of any wildlife crossing structure, and that’s because we want wildlife to use the crossing structure. Tall fencing was installed along the highway, which will funnel the animals behind it and over to the wildlife crossing, keep them from getting on the highway. So now I want to show you guys kind of the main feature of this. As the bridge was widened, it actually we work with DOT to make sure they installed kind of a bench that goes under, which allows for, better footing for animals, gets them off the road and gives them a great pathway to, again, move from the Smokies to the Pisgah and back and forth. So let’s take a walk! If you can imagine before the bridge was repaired and extended that rip wrap, the big rocks went all the way up the bank. So as part of the project, the rip wrap was taken away, the area was leveled out and fine sand and gravel was put in its place so that the animals could safely walk on this bench underneath the overpass. Some animals don’t like to get their feet wet. Some animals like to stay dry, some animals like to stay high, some animals like to stay low. So what we’re trying to do is provide enough opportunities so that any species that needs to get through here can move through here freely. The Safe Passage Coalition is made up of more than 20 organizations in North Carolina and Tennessee. Some are national organizations like Defenders of Wildlife who are working together to install safe passage for wildlife across Interstate 40 and other places in western North Carolina.
Defenders of Wildlife works on the ground, in the courts, and on Capitol Hill to protect and restore imperiled wildlife and habitats across North America.
