Press Releases Archives - Center for Large Landscape Conservation

The Center and the Montana Dept. of Transportation Leverage Community Support for a Wildlife Crossing

In early September, the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) applied to the federal Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program for a discretionary grant to help fund a $26-million project that includes a new wildlife overpass, upgrades to an existing underpass, and a bridge retrofit to allow wildlife to pass safely over and beneath US Highway 191 in Southwest Montana. Through the Montana Wildlife and Transportation Partnership, MDT teamed with the Bozeman-based, nonprofit Center for Large Landscape Conservation to move the grant application forward. US-191 parallels the Gallatin River, cutting through critical habitat for resident, wide-ranging, and migratory species in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

New Push to Protect Endangered Asian Elephants from Roads and Railways

A century ago, an estimated 100,000 elephants roamed throughout Asia. Today, fewer than half that number of Asian elephants remain in just 13 countries. Among the reasons for this decline is the explosion of new roads, railways and other linear infrastructure across the continent. In fact, collisions with cars and trains are a leading cause of elephant mortality in India, and many more elephants are impacted by roads and railways, causing habitat loss and fragmentation.

Researchers Identify Options to Reduce Wildlife-Vehicle Collisions on US-191 in Montana

The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is home to the largest concentration of wildlife in the lower 48 states. But as the numbers of area residents and annual visitors have grown, so has the incidence of wildlife-vehicle collisions. On US Highway 191 through and around Yellowstone National Park, large mammals like elk and deer are hit with increasing frequency and rising traffic volumes make it harder for wildlife to access habitat on either side. To address these problems, a team from the nonprofit Center for Large Landscape Conservation and Montana State University’s Western Transportation Institute embarked upon a two-year study to better understand wildlife movement and improve road safety along this busy route.

New Study Identifies Important Highway Locations for Wildlife Crossings in 11 Western U.S. States

As our nation’s highways get bigger and busier, wildlife habitat and populations become more fragmented, and wild animals find it increasingly difficult to safely cross roads. The wildlife-vehicle collisions that kill more than one million large mammals each year in the U.S. also cause hundreds of human fatalities and tens of thousands of injuries. To help address this dangerous problem to both wildlife and people, the nonprofit Center for Large Landscape Conservation, Montana State University’s Western Transportation Institute, and Dr. David Theobald with Conservation Planning Technologies have published the results of the West-Wide Study to Identify Important Highway Locations for Wildlife Crossings.

Asian Elephant And Machinery 2, Malaysia Gary Tabor

Just Published: ‘Addressing Ecological Connectivity in the Development of Roads, Railways, and Canals’

The planet is experiencing unprecedented levels of land conversion and habitat loss, often in the most biologically rich ecosystems. Despite the well-known societal and economic benefits of infrastructure, indiscriminate development of roads, railways and canals increasingly threatens biodiversity. Endangered Asian elephants are regularly hit by trains; American bison are struck just outside Yellowstone National Park; and road construction opens the door to runaway deforestation, even deep in the Amazon Rainforest.

Drone Footage Of A Colorado Wildlife Crossing. Credit: Tony Cady/CDOT

New Federal Funding to Build Life-Saving Wildlife Crossings is Now Available

Millions of collisions occur between drivers and animals on U.S. roads annually. To address this dangerous, expensive, and growing problem, Congress created a national Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program. This new grant program will prevent accidents and connect habitat by investing in measures that allow wildlife to safely cross over or under roads and fish to pass through streams beneath roads. Earlier today, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced a Notice of Funding Opportunity for the program’s first round of competitive grants—nearly $112M for research, planning, design, and construction projects that aim to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions and improve aquatic and terrestrial habitat connectivity.

Experts Agree on the Need for Climate-informed Wildlife Crossings

More than a dozen climate, wildlife, and road ecology experts from across the country wrote a consensus statement urging government officials at all levels to consider climate change when planning and constructing structures that help fish and wildlife cross under and over highways. As the appetite increases for solutions that improve wildlife migration and movement while reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions, there is a heightened need and opportunity for designing infrastructure that is sited and designed in ways that accommodate the current and anticipated impacts of climate change.

Asian elephants on newly constructed railway platform in Tamil Nadu – WWF India

USAID Launches Project to Strengthen Infrastructure Safeguards That Conserve Natural Resources and Support Livelihoods in Asia

MONTREAL, DEC. 15, 2022 – Asia is experiencing the highest infrastructure investment rates globally, led by transportation and energy sector expansion. Yet much of this planned infrastructure will bisect some of the world’s most biodiverse areas and affect access to vital natural resources that people depend upon for their livelihoods, such as forest products and clean water.

New Initiative Seeks to Connect Wild Spaces

WWF, the Center for Large Landscape Conservation and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas’ Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group today launched a new initiative to conserve nature’s connections: Wildlife Connect. The initiative aims to secure ecological connectivity, defined by the Convention on Migratory Species as the “unimpeded movement of species and the flow of natural processes that sustain life on Earth.” From great migrations of wildlife across landscapes and continents to river flows from mountain to sea, nature’s circulatory system of connections is essential for a healthy planet. Yet they are rapidly disappearing, destabilizing ecosystems and the essential benefits they provide for us all.

Grant Program Drives Collaborative, Local Action to Achieve National Conservation Goals

This is a watershed moment for conservation in the United States. The Biden administration’s America the Beautiful initiative—along with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Law—is driving unprecedented levels of funding into the restoration, stewardship, and conservation of our lands and waters. But this influx of federal project delivery funding reveals a gap that needs to be filled: the on-the-ground capacity to get the work done. The Catalyst Fund, with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, aims to build capacity and help local and regional partnerships contribute toward achieving national conservation goals.

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