Conserving nature is about not only protecting the landscape, but also protecting the enormous benefits that nature provides to local and regional communities. Across the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern U.S., wildlife is a vital part of functional landscapes that provide the benefits people rely on, such as food and clean water, protection from floods, and many outdoor recreation opportunities. As a global hotspot for animals such as salamanders and freshwater mussels, the Appalachians are remarkably beautiful and globally significant.
While the Appalachians may not have big game migrations, a diversity of iconic wildlife such as black bear, bobcats, and salamanders need space to move freely through the landscape. To maintain wildlife movement, large, connected areas of habitat are needed to sustain wildlife and allow animals to move freely in search of food, shelter, and one another.
However, roads are where human movements collide with animal movements. Each year in the U.S., 1- 2 million wildlife-vehicle collisions occur, resulting on average in 200 human deaths and 28,000 injuries. In the Appalachians, the risk for collisions is especially high: every state in the region is ranked as high- or medium-risk, and West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Virginia are among the top ten states for wildlife-vehicle collisions.
These wildlife-vehicle collisions are also expensive. The cumulative cost is estimated to be $10 billion dollars in economic impacts. Hitting one of Central Appalachia’s growing elk herd incurs an average cost of about $75,000. Even avoiding collisions is costly, as insurance companies pass the high costs of these collisions to their policyholders.
For wildlife, the impacts are just as severe. Roads fragment and disconnect habitats, preventing wildlife from moving freely by serving as a direct barrier. Millions of animals are hit by vehicles each year and hundreds of thousands are killed in vehicle collisions. Poorly designed river and stream crossings, such as undersized culverts under roads, block the movement of fish, salamanders, and other aquatic animals, impacting the health of these species across the region.
The Path to Safer, Connected Landscapes
Across the region, states are working to conserve large, connected landscapes and reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions. Vermont’s Conservation Design is guiding the state’s efforts to ensure enough of the landscape is conserved to support its wildlife and provide nature’s benefits to its residents. Virginia’s Wildlife Corridor Action Plan is guiding efforts to protect vital wildlife habitat corridors and reduce wildlife-vehicle conflicts.
Virginia built its first wildlife crossing structure in 2005 and Pennsylvania has constructed 33 crossings. The structures are effective, reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions from 80 to 97%. These structures can pay for themselves: one project in Virginia upgraded transportation infrastructure to be more wildlife friendly and the investment paid for itself within two years by reducing costly collisions.
Nine Appalachian states received grants from the Federal Highway Administration’s Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program, a five-year, $350-million grant program established in 2021 to conduct assessments, develop plans that reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions, and build wildlife crossing structures.
The current Wildlife Crossing Pilot Program will end after this year, but permanent authorization for this program has been included in the BUILD America 250 Act, a five-year bipartisan surface transportation re-authorization proposal that is currently moving through Congress. The $400-million program still faces an uphill battle to be passed into law under the current administration.
Many Appalachian states are considering or have already passed their own landscape connectivity and wildlife corridor legislation to plan for, pay for, and implement landscape conservation. For example, Virginia legislators introduced a bill that would establish tax on data centers and use the revenue for landscape conservation, including implementing the Virginia Wildlife Corridor Action Plan.
There are multiple pathways to conserving and connecting our landscape to ensure wildlife safely move and communities benefit. These pathways will require continued actions at the federal, state, and local levels. When we keep Appalachia connected, we’re not just protecting nature, we’re protecting ourselves.
Please note: This digest is intended to provide up-to-date information on policy development from a neutral, unaffiliated position as it relates to connectivity and corridor science and management.
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