all across America Critters are crossing the road and more and more of them Conor Knighton tells us are doing it in style Interstate 90 is the longest interstate highway in the United States spanning more than 3,000 miles it connects Seattle in the west to Boston in the East but it also serves as a massive concrete divide for the animals who live to the north and south of the interstate this Road has absolutely wrecked their commute is there a rush hour for the animals yes they tend to be nocturnal or crepuscular sort of at dawn or dusk Patty Garvey-Darda is a wildlife biologist with the US Forest Service Brian White works for the Washington State Department of Transportation together their two organizations have teamed up to develop a network of Critter Crossings in Washington overpasses and underpasses Design design to provide safe passage for wildlife the fact that you have one here and one here is that because you've identified both of those areas as areas that animals are likely to cross yes correct the crossing project spans 15 mil of I90 near the Snoqualmie pass in Washington flanked by large chunks of what's primarily National Forest land habitat for all sorts of creatures great and small if they're protected on both sides why does it matter if they're connected because you lose genetic variability and gradually you start getting localized Extinction and populations get further and further apart and smaller around the country most animals see a busy highway and turn around a brave few might try to cross but they're at risk of getting run over a wildlife Crossing is supposed to make that process far less treacherous but there's no guarantee that if you build it they will come there's a wildlife Corridor sign back there is that that helps right that's how the animals figure it out they just look at that and they're like okay I guess this is the way to go miles of fencing along the road funnel animals to Crossing points High concrete walls block headlights and dull the traffic noise we want to mimic the habitat on either side um native plants and everything so that animals sort of don't even see the transition it worked in 2023 cameras captured animals using these Crossings more than 5,000 times including mule deer elk and coyotes when this started was there some other example that you were looking at as a success story to model this after well B Canada obviously comes to the top of the list the section of the Trans Canada Highway that cuts through Banff national park has been used as a model for Crossings worldwide Banff's 38 undercrossings and six overcrossings have reduced Wildlife collisions by 80% back in the US there are now around 1,500 Wildlife Crossing structures in 43 States in Wyoming Pronghorn run across Highway 191 in Florida Panthers and alligators creep under I-75 they can be subtle motorists may have no idea they're driving over moose in Montana or tunnels full of tortoises in Utah but it will be hard to miss this Crossing not far from Los Angeles they're building the largest Wildlife Corridor in the country I really wish it had been the smallest I could have gotten years of my life back you know trying trying to help raise the money in the public support Beth Pratt serves as Regional executive director for the National Wildlife Federation in California once it's completed in late 2025 or early 2026 the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing will stretch for more than 200 ft across 10 lanes of the 101 freeway which can see up to 400,000 Vehicles a day I think that's a real miracle that over one of the busiest freeways in the world you're going to be driving under it in a mountain line Fox might be walking over or a fence lizard or a a ground squirrel may have a family on top that's a really hopeful project and we do owe it to P22 this is P22 the celebrated mountain lion who roamed around LA's Griffith Park when he was younger he somehow made it across two freeways only to end up a lonely Hollywood Bachelor until his death in 2022 o P22 all of Los Angeles is going to miss you but even for the mountain lions who can find mates the dates are a little too close to home biologists worry the small population here could soon go extinct it's almost certain that the cats over here that are breeding are related to each other in some way but somewhere over there maybe there's a hot new thing you know think if you're on Tinder and all the matches you're getting are family members right why do we have to put that yeah sorry the crossing which is estimated to cost $90 million will expand the dating pool that's important for all sorts of Critters even ones who aren't as obviously charismatic back underneath I-90 Professor Jason Irwin and his team of Central Washington University students are focused on everything from toads to salamanders it's fantastic and it's really been uh fantastic to work in a project where they appreciate the little guy there are also human lives at stake you know there are parts of the country where Traffic Safety means installing a new crosswalk at a busy intersection there are other parts of the country where Traffic Safety means things like Wildlife Crossings last year Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg announced a Federal grant program awarding a total of $350 million to States looking to build Crossings and improve safety there are approximately 1 million collisions involving large Wildlife on America's roads each year resulting in some 200 human deaths if you think about it that way and you think about how many accidents didn't happen these Crossing structures pay for themselves pretty fast Brian White has already seen a reduction in collisions where the crossings have been built fewer road closures mean faster commutes for everyone this is showing the the wildlife Collision uh incidents that we had along the corridor this is before we started work before we had the fence up this is what it looks like now even though the crossing Construction in Los Angeles has meant occasional slowdowns and lane closures Pratt says the public has been able to stay focused on the benefits down the road Wildlife Crossings are something it doesn't matter if you're a Republican or a Democrat or or what political affiliation people really support them I think there's very few people who don't get upset when they see a dead animal on the side of the road so I think that this is something that in a time where we agree on very little we pretty much agree on Wildlife Crossings