Show Me the Way to Go Home: Dedicated Crossings for Wildlife Save Lives (Human and Animal) and Help the Environment
- Jul 26
- 5 min read
Have you seen The Sheep Detectives? In a key scene, Mopple and Lily are scared to cross the road because they have only walked on grass. Sebastian says to them, “all you have to do is cross the road.” Lily is terrified. Along comes a chicken who crosses without any fear.
Of course, in real life it’s not that easy or funny because there are vehicles. As everyone knows, roadway encounters between wildlife and motorists pose risks to the wildlife, motorists, and property. But roads also present additional significant hazards for wildlife. Viewed as a border wildlife can’t cross, roads interrupt migration paths and habitats, which, even if wildlife are protected on both sides of the road, can limit reproduction options —think populations isolated from one another—which in turn limits “genetic variability” and ultimately can lead to “localized extinction.” (A federal study found “21 federally listed threatened or endangered animal species in the United States for which road mortality is documented as one of the major threats to their survival.”) That’s why in 1955 Florida created the nation’s first wildlife crossing (an underpass for bears). In 1975, Utah built the nation’s first wildlife bridge near Interstate 15.
Fast forward to today and there are dedicated wildlife crossings throughout the world, including about 1,000 in the USA. While Georgia has no dedicated overland crossings, there are underpass crossings (including the 300-ft one the livestock at regenerative farming leader White Oak Pastures use to cross under US 27 in Bluffton, Georgia).
However, thanks to a 2024 U.S. Department of Transportation $2.2 million grant to the state Georgia, the situation should improve. The grant from the federal Wildlife Crossing Program supports an interdisciplinary effort (involving the Georgia Department of Transportation, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and UGA’s College of Engineering’s Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems as well as UGA’s School of Forestry and Natural Resources) to study and create passages to keep wildlife safely off Georgia roads, to improve habitat connectivity, and to control culvert flooding, which also threatens habitats. Ideas include adapting and improving existing road bridges to create spaces for animals since, in some cases, animals already try to use some of these existing structures to cross roads.
In case you are inclined to see this as a big government boondoggle, the cost of wildlife and motor vehicle crashes is no joke. According to State Farm, for the 12 months ending June 30, 2025, Georgians filed 70,000 animal (mostly deer) collision claims, making Georgia ninth in the state rankings. The Pew Foundation and the US Dept. of Transportation report nationally there at least one million, and perhaps as many as two million, crashes occur annually between “motor vehicles and large animals such as deer.” The cost of these exceeds “$8 billion, and results in approximately tens of thousands of serious injuries and hundreds of fatalities on U.S. roadways,” according to the Federal Highway Administration. Pew also notes, “[i]n rural states such as Wyoming, wildlife-vehicle crashes represent almost 20% of reported collisions.” Pew adds, “[t]he cost to wildlife also is significant. With wildlife corridors often blocked or impeded by roads and highways, economically important species such as elk and mule deer are cut off from seasonal migration routes, threatening population stability.”
You might be wondering, how do the wildlife know to use a dedicated crossing? There’s been lots of studying done. Wildlife don’t like to cross roads, so fences — often called exclusionary fencing — covered with vegetation can help corral the wildlife to cross at a designated spot. (A study in Montana showed that 3 miles of fencing was ideal.) Canada's Banff National Park “has the most wildlife crossing structures and highway enclosure fencing in a single location on the planet,” reports the Parks Canada Agency. In 2024, the Canadian-US organization Yellowstone to Yukon shared that years of study in the Park show “[h]ighway fencing and crossings in Canada’s Banff National Park have reduced wildlife-vehicle collisions by more than 80 per cent and for elk and deer alone, by more than 96 per cent.” In the USA, a study of designated crossings for wildlife in Montana, which included 55 miles of US 93 in the western part of the state, concluded “animals were 146 percent more likely to use the crossings than to cross at a random location.” The Univeristy of Alberta (Canada) has even looked at whether predators use dedicated underpasses as traps — they don’t.
The Netherlands: World Leader in Dedicated Wildlife Crossings and Fish Who Get by with a Little Help from Their Human Friends
The Netherlands, considered by some the world’s leader in designated wildlife crossings, having built 3,000 of them, created Europe’s first wildlife crossing (the badger tunnel) in 1974. The nation is home to the world’s largest wildlife bridge — covering about a half mile so animals can cross over a highway and railway. Perhaps most famously, the Dutch have the cult favorite Visdeurbel (fish doorbell) that allows fish migrating during the March to May season to pass through the nearly 200 year old Weerdsluis lock in Ultrecht (located in the center of the country).
“Each time [the Weerdsluis Lock] is opened about 1.5 million litres of water flow through. The difference in the water level is nearly a metre. The lock allows the water levels in Ultrecht to be controlled with centimetre precision.”
The lock is often closed during this season because fewer ships are passing. It’s a laborious and time-consuming process to open it —requiring at least 30 minutes for the operators to turn the wheel — so it’s important to know there are fish wanting to cross before expending all that effort, explains Scientific American. Since 2021, on the internet, during the migration season, viewers from all over the world can and do watch fish via a live camera and ring a bell to alert the lock operator to let the fish (bleak, catfish, eels, and pike) pass through. In 2025, “the site had more than 2.3 million unique visitors who pressed the doorbell a collective 200,000 times and let thousands of fish continue on their journeys,” reports Scientific American.
London: Hole Up Here on the Hedgehog Highway
Hedgehogs, those delightful nocturnal creatures featured in children's stories like Jan Brett’s The Mitten and Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, are at risk of extinction in England. (The BBC reports a 2022 study showed that “up to three quarters of all of Britain's rural hedgehogs have been lost since the turn of the century.”) However, London, which “has more gardens per square mile than any other capital city,” is one place in Britain where hedgehog numbers seem to be “stabilizing,” shares David Attenborough in a BBC documentary. For hedgehogs to be able to traverse London’s gardens to eat (apparently they eat a lot —about 100g/nearly 4 ounces — in a night, Sir Attenborough says), find mates, and so forth, they need connectivity and safe connectivity at that. To help, Londoners are making holes in their fences and walls (see the cute trail marker in the photo from the BBC online report) and providing “feeding stations” so the hedgehogs can go from garden to garden and also eat — thus forming the safer hedgehog highway, which the Zoological Society of London monitors through its London Hogwatch.
Seriously Funny
Spoiler alert, while Lily and Mopple eventually make it across the road, wildlife crossing roads is a very serious issue. To see a brief timeline of dedicated wildlife crossings both nationally and internationally, you can visit the USDOT (don’t be put off by the name of the publication when you click on the link). You can watch some of David Attenborough’s educational, and yes adorable, documentary about the hedgehogs here. You also can review highlights of the 2026 Fish Doorbell season and see some amazing footage of the largest wildlife bridge in the Netherlands. And last but not least, you can help by paying attention to roadway signs that alert humans to areas where wildlife may indeed try to cross the road.
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