This is so freaking awesome!

[kpete]

"It's working!" Check out the critters big and small who are using Utah's first wildlife overpass to cross Interstate 80. The @UtahDWR shared this video on Thursday.

Link to tweet

?s=20

[bluestarone]

1. NICE!

Looks like this will save many animal lives. Also human lives maybe? I love this!

[42bambi]

2. How great is that! Thanks for posting.

[Grown2Hate]

3. That's amazing. :) Thank you for the uplifting post!

[central scrutinizer]

4. Those are common in British Columbia

Some are planted with trees and other vegetation

[Nevilledog]

5. Brilliant idea.

[electric_blue68]

6. I've been seeing these posted off & on my...

FB feed either usually over passes, bridges, ccasionally underpasses for a few years now. 👏

I think they're wonderful. ❤️ So helpful to the animals, and by extension to the whole areas ecosystem.
And it's fun to see the night vision footage, too.

[Leghorn21]

7. All creatures great and small!! - but hey, where's the honey badger??!

(LOVED this!! )

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. How fantastic! We desperately need them on SoCal's freeways.

We have a small, struggling mountain lion population that routinely get killed trying to cross our freeways. Their habitat is so chopped up it's a miracle that any survive.

It's been discussed forever, but nothing ever seems to happen. It makes me sad.

Great video!

[LizBeth]

9. Very cool. !!

[Chili]

10. that is fantastic!

Ohio has a lot of deer that cause a lot of accidents, and coyotes too, abandoned dogs, even smaller animals that might make a driver jerk his car to miss hitting them. I'd like to think we could budget one or two of these - once outside the cities, there are forests all over the place, very green state.

[ginny skinny]

11. Hate to be Debbie Downer...

Honestly I love animals and applaud any efforts to give them a break but it seems like the cougars will eventually learn to just hang out there and enjoy the smorgasbord.

[flamingdem]

12. Sadly, the hunters have done away with most of the cougars

in Utah I believe.

[Old Crow]

17. I don't think that's a concern, for a few reasons.

First, pumas are highly territorial and I don't think a group of them would share a hunting ground; and second the number of animals one or two pumas are going to kill is fewer than the number of animals that would be struck by cars over a five-mile stretch of highway without an animal crossing in place. Lastly, if pumas were going to use such pinch-points to pick off prey, I'm pretty sure the people who design these animal crossings would be well aware of that behavior. Instead, I've never seen it discussed as a problem.

Granted, I'm no expert on wildlife and I could be wrong.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

26. "I love animals and applaud any efforts to give them a break"

As you say, sounds like that's just what the overpass could do!

[ecstatic]

41. I was wondering about that... Not just cougars

but bears, etc... Glad to see the fence is pretty high so that fights don't spill over onto the interstate.

[soothsayer]

13. Very nice

[mysteryowl]

14. Thank you so much for posting this!

We have a hwy being rebuilt costing millions and we need this!
I have emailed the mayor and other key people this link!

[c-rational]

15. This is wonderful. Thanks for posting. People often do not realize how badly our interstate highway

system inhibited animal movement across the continent. Hope this is that start of something much bigger.

[Hekate]

38. The only critter I know of that has benefitted by our highway system is Coyote the Trickster...

Thanks to humans, the coyote now has a range from sea to shining sea. They’ve even established themselves in Central Park, NYC, of all places.

Others, especially the great predators like bears and mountain lions, have had their territories chopped to pieces by housing developments and freeways. Each one of them needs miles and miles in which to roam, in order to find mates and food. Without that they starve, get inbred, and die out.

I love this idea. It’s been talked about in California, but I don’t know if we’ve even managed to build a single one. Our SoCal mountain lions are in bad shape.

[c-rational]

42. Thanks for your comment. Sounds like we are on opposite coasts. I cycle around the loop in Central

Park several times a month but have not spotted a coyote yet. When will we learn to live with nature in harmony?

[Wounded Bear]

16. They have moose in Utah?

I didn't realize they lived that far south.

[Hekate]

40. I know! That was fun to see.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

18. Wonderful!

[TeamPooka]

19. love it

[crickets]

20. That's gr-- SQUIRREL!

Wonderful. I'm so glad it's working out.

[JoeOtterbein]

21. Thanks for reminding me of one of my favorite places:

[link:https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/washington/articles/this-u-s-state-built-a-bridge-just-for-squirrels/|

[csziggy]

27. Now there are several of those bridges!

That's pretty cool. I wish they would do that along the rural road I have to travel. There are lots of dead squirrels along the route. It's supposed to be a canopy road with trees arching over the road but with power lines and hurricane damage the canopy is not as complete as it used to be, so the squirrels - and other animals - take the land route.

Along US 27 north of town they built bridges under the road for the turtles. There is a big lake next to the road and one arm of the lake was cut off. The turtles like to breed in that arm, even decades after the highway was built and would get run over. Since they built the bridge no turtles have been killed - before over 2700 had been killed on that stretch of highway.

Lake Jackson Ecopassage
Tallahassee, Florida

Located in northern Leon County, Lake Jackson is internationally known for sport fishing and for the trophy large-mouth bass that swim in its shallow waters. The 4,000-acre lake is normally about seven feet deep, but has two major sinkholes that are each approximately 28 feet deep. These sinkholes cause wide fluctuations in water levels, so much so that the lake fully dries out about every 25 years.

Designated as an Aquatic Preserve by the State of Florida, Lake Jackson also boasts a variety of wetland habitats, and thus has a high diversity and abundance of wildlife living in its waters and on surrounding shores. Especially abundant at Lake Jackson are birds, amphibians, and reptiles.

In the 1920s, a state highway was constructed on the western side of Lake Jackson. This highway, which would have been illegal to build under present-day environmental laws, effectively separated the lake into two parts. Now a four-lane road, the highway is traveled by more than 22,000 cars per day.

Driving along the road in February of 2000, Matt Aresco, a doctoral graduate student in herpetology at Florida State University, noticed some dead turtles in the roadway. Stopping to take a look, he spent several hours moving remains from the roadway and, in that one afternoon, collected 90 carcasses from the eastern side of highway 27. Deciding to take action, Aresco and a group of volunteers began spending countless hours monitoring the stretch of roadway, transporting turtles across, and petitioning for a permanent solution. In the first 40 days, before they were able to construct a temporary fence, they discovered 439 dead turtles. In the first five years of monitoring, volunteers hand-collected, measured, and transported 8,800 turtles across the road; in the same time period, 11,178 dead animals and reptiles were found. With a 98% mortality rate, this area of roadway had the highest documented road mortality (for animals) of any in the world.

More: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lake-jackson-ecopassage

[JoeOtterbein]

32. I was lucky to be in Longview, WA in 2016. It's also a great place to stay when exploring places...

...like the Columbia River, Mount Saint Helens, Mount Hood, Cannon Beach, and so many of our great natural treasures within a day trip. Love it all!

[csziggy]

34. I'll have to put it on my list

I'm hoping to have a vacation to Vancouver Island, BC, and to the Seattle area in Washington state someday if Covid ever gets under control. While we are there, the places you name would be lovely to see. And both my husband and I prefer smaller towns over the cities, so Longview is more our style than Seattle.

[nancy1942]

22. Beautiful!!

What a great thing.

[Ferryboat]

23. WSDOT has just finished a project on I-90

Between Easton and snoqualme pass wa. Gives me hope that this is proof of concept that it will be incorporated in future projects around the country. There is a need to provide wildlife a way to travel the western usa between urban / rural interface safely.

[Talitha]

24. Thanks so much for posting this, kpete!

The Cougar using the log as a scratching post made me smile - such a relaxed and natural thing caught on camera. I also noticed a Cougar carrying something that didn't look like a Kitten, so it was probably dinner.

Also, a Black Bear was walking right-to-left and quickly stopped, turned around, and back tracked. After a few seconds it turned back again and continued on its original course.
I'm wondering if a car horn down on the highway startled it. These poor animals have been dodging traffic all ther lives and it's good to know they'll be safe now.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

25. We need one of these

For every road.

[calimary]

28. Moose! And all other creatures great and small!

I loved the cougar (?) availing himself of the fallen log - to stretch and sharpen his claws.

And I think I saw a large mama cat carrying one of her cubs by the scruff of the neck.

I LOVE these things! They're USING it! BRAVO to Utah! I've heard of these before but never saw such a satisfying results video!

[smirkymonkey]

29. K&R

[Duppers]

30. More of this, please.

[BusyBeingBest]

31. How wonderful--every state should have these in at least a few places

on their interstates.

[JustGene]

33. All gods critters

[MustLoveBeagles]

35. This is a great idea

[Hermit-The-Prog]

36. Needs more cover (hiding places and shade) for the wee ones.

[Hekate]

37. I LOVE this. Had a lotta fun IDing the critters as they strolled by

[flotsam]

39. I too find some concerns with predation...

If I were an eagle I'm thinking this is a great place to soar the thermals while looking for hors d'oevres...