BOW VALLEY – Crossing structures and associated highway fencing save the lives of wildlife and people.
That’s according to a growing body of scientific research from around the world, including in Banff National Park, where wildlife-vehicle collisions on the Trans-Canada Highway reduced by more than 80 per cent with fencing and associated crossing structures.
Tony Clevenger, a renowned scientist who specializes in effects of highways and other barriers on wildlife connectivity, said fencing is highly effective at reducing wildlife vehicle collisions, but fencing alone blocks movements and isolates populations.
“Fencing with crossing structures is the most effective method of mitigating wildlife vehicle collisions and maintaining connectivity across busy roads,” said Clevenger, a Bow-Valley-based scientists who worked on the Banff wildlife crossing project for 17 years. “We know that they are cost effective and pay for themselves in a matter of a decade or less.”
Recent wildlife collisions near Canmore have renewed calls for fencing and wildlife crossings along a 39-km stretch of the Trans-Canada outside Banff’s east gate to Highway 40, including a petition by local resident Cinthia Nemoto, who has collected 3,000 signatures.
In the most recent collision on April 27, a semi-struck hit seven elk in the eastbound lane east of Canmore between the Cougar Creek pedestrian underpass and the exit to Three Sisters. Four elk were already dead, but the RCMP had to shoot three injured elk.
In the first accident, three vehicles were damaged as a result of elk being on the highway near the Palliser lands in Canmore on Feb. 28. One person was taken to hospital.
“I strongly believe that it is only a matter of time before there is a human fatality,” said Fiona Coldridge, the woman involved in the crash, in a letter she sent to Miranda Rosin, the new United Conservative Party MLA for Banff-Kananaskis.
“I am still recovering from my physical injuries and I also have PTSD.”
Rosin, who won her seat for Banff-Kananaskis in the April 16 provincial election, said vehicle collisions with wildlife in this area are becoming an increasing problem.
She said she plans to have conversations with the appropriate provincial ministers.
“It would be even scarier if the seven elk hit by the semi all at once were hit by seven different vehicles; we could have had seven people dead,” said Rosin.
“While I’m happy to start conversations with the appropriate minsters, we can’t be making any promises until we get a hard look at the books and get an idea where we are financially.”
In neighbouring Banff National Park, there are now 38 wildlife underpasses and six overpasses along an 82-kilometre stretch of highway from the park’s east entrance to the border of Yoho National Park.
Highway fencing there has reduced wildlife-vehicle collisions by more than 80 per cent and, for elk and deer alone, by more than 96 per cent.
Clevenger said there were, on average, more than 100 elk-vehicle collisions a year in Banff National Park on the first 22 kilometres of entering the park from the east gate prior to Parks Canada putting in fencing and underpasses in the 1980s.
“No one was ever killed, but there were several accidents with injuries and the park knew it would be a matter of time before some was severely injured or a fatality,” said Clevenger.
“They had the wherewithal to mitigate for wildlife-vehicle collisions during the highway expansion.”
In Arizona and California, Clevenger said there are precedents where departments of transportation were sued for accidents that occurred in areas where the agency knew there was a high likelihood or risk of accident with major injury or fatality – and did nothing.
“If nothing is done to mitigate the Trans-Canada Highway through this part of the Bow Valley, we may have a collision event with fatalities,” he said.
“Alberta Transportation may wish that they had acted earlier and mitigated this problem with relatively inexpensive and effective measures.”
The Bow Valley is one of the most important regional wildlife corridors in Alberta and it’s also a busy corridor for humans, with an average of 22,000 vehicles every day buzzing by on the highway.
Deer, elk, bighorn sheep, moose, cougars, lynx, wolves, black and grizzly bears use the high quality habitat along the Bow River valley bottom to move between the protected areas of Banff National Park and Kananaskis Country.
A 2012 study, which was co-authored by Clevenger, identified 10 sites along a 39-kilometre stretch of highway from the east gate of Banff to Highway 40, with recommendations including fencing and associated underpasses.
The study, by Miistakis Institute and Western Transportation Institute, also called for one overpass at Bow Valley Gap east of Lac Des Arc. A critical wildlife corridor there has historically seen the highest number of vehicle-wildlife collisions in the entire study area.
Last year, Alberta Transportation hired a consultant to do the design and cost benefit analysis of the structure, expected to cost about $7 million to build. The fate of this project is currently unknown under the UCP government.
“I would be very happy to start a conversation,” said Rosin.
Most of the study area has not been mitigated for wildlife, but the 2012 report also points to what is called a “mitigation success story” for wildlife near Dead Man’s Flats. Three kilometres of highway fencing, 1.5 km east and 1.5 km west of an underpass, was installed in 2004.
“From Dead Man’s Flats, we know that one underpass with short fenced section on each side reduced road kills, primarily elk and deer, by 78 per cent,” said Clevenger.
