Wildlife Migration and Movement
What if a busy freeway separated you and your family from the food and water you needed to survive? You’re on foot, no car or truck to take you where you want to go. You’d still be strongly motivated to risk your life and cross that freeway to get what you need to live.
Freedom of movement isn’t a given for the wildlife whose habitat we share. The roads we’ve built and continue to build make movement a perilous and sometimes fatal necessity. Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) carcass collection data shows that some 5,000 deer, elk, bear, and other large animals are killed in collisions with cars and trucks every year in Oregon. Collisions with wildlife and accident avoidance also claim the lives of 1-2 motorists annually.
There’s still more to the problem of wildlife-vehicle collisions. The number of animals that die outside the public right-of-way is unknown, but research suggests a number 2-3 times higher than what we’re documenting. That means we may be losing 10,000-15,000 large animals to wildlife-vehicle collisions every year in Oregon.
Additionally, ODOT’s data only includes large-bodied animals - the number of smaller species like frogs, turtles, and birds of prey dying as a result of vehicle strikes is unknown. That said, the shoulders of our streets and highways tell the story.
People are impacted by wildlife-vehicle collisions, too. On average, one to two motorists will die annually because of a collision or near miss with an animal. Wildlife-vehicle collisions and avoidance also cause tens of millions of dollars in private and public property damage each and every year.
Of course, wildlife-vehicle collisions aren’t the only challenge faced by wildlife as they move around their habitat or migrate seasonally, but it’s a problem with a proven solution; fencing and passage structures like underpasses and overpasses can help wildlife get safely across busy roadways, save lives, and reduce property loss.
Supporting Wildlife Migration and Movement
We want to help wildlife move safely between habitat patches. Projects that support wildlife migration and movement are a priority for the Foundation. We’re working with ODOT, ODFW and community-based partners on wildlife passage projects, habitat improvement, and the conservation of wildlife migration corridors throughout Oregon.
Join us to help improve habitat connectivity for wildlife in Oregon.
Here are some things you can do:
Wildlife Ambassador
Suzanne Linford, the Founder of Protect Animal Migration and Movement, is our Wildlife Ambassador. Suzanne is an excellent resource for information about wildlife and their need to move within their range and seasonally between higher and lower-elevation habitats. If you want to learn more about how to become an advocate for wildlife, contact Suzanne to schedule a talk for your association or group. Click HERE for more information on local advocacy.
Founder of Protect Animal Migration & Movement and Oregon Wildlife Foundation Wildlife Ambassador
1. Buy a Watch for Wildlife license plate
Your purchase and renewal of a Watch for Wildlife license plate makes funding available for projects that help wildlife move safely around busy roads and between habitat patches. It also helps conserve migration corridors and restore habitat in priority wildlife connectivity areas (PWCAs). To get yours, visit your local DMV or order online.
2. Donate to wildlife migration and habitat connectivity now
If you don’t want the Watch for Wildlife license plate for your car or truck but still want to support wildlife movement and migration projects, consider making a tax deductible donation by texting WFW to 44-321 or using the donation button below.
3. Do you own property that’s within a Priority Wildlife Connectivity Area?
Priority Wildlife Connectivity Areas or PWCAs are areas of land important to wildlife movement. They include both intact, relatively undisturbed good quality habitat as well as the best remaining marginal habitat to help wildlife move through developed or degraded areas.
Focused investments in habitat within PWCAs can increase the likelihood of long-term maintenance of wildlife connectivity in Oregon and can maximize effectiveness over larger landscapes, improve funding efficiency, and promote cooperative efforts across ownership boundaries to better enhance and protect habitat critical to wildlife movement.
Go here to see if your property is near or within a PWCA
If it is, let’s explore how we can work together to enhance, restore, and conserve these critical areas for wildlife movement.
https://oregonconservationstrategy.org/success-story/priority-wildlife-connectivity-areas-pwcas/
4. Work with us or another wildlife conservation organization to restore and conserve wildlife habitat on your property
Increasing the biodiversity of your own property is one way to help offset the loss of wildlife habitat elsewhere. On larger properties, this might include creating a range of natural habitats that encourage use by a variety of species. There are many ways to improve your property for wildlife and, in some cases, financial assistance or tax incentives to help you in the process. Here are just a few of the resources and programs that are available to land owners and managers.
Under certain circumstances, the Foundation may also be able to help with a cost match when that’s required. See our grant program for more information.
ODFW: Wildlife Habitat Conservation and Management Program (WHCMP)
ODFW: Riparian Lands Tax Incentive
ODFW: A & H Grants
5. Need to repair or replace your fence? Consider a wildlife-friendly design
While important for controlling livestock and preventing trespass, fences can also be a hazard for a multitude of wildlife species. Animals become entangled in or collide with fencing, sometimes with fatal results. The good news is that there are things you can do that preserve the reasons for fences while making them less dangerous to wildlife.
PAM and OWF: fence manual link
Contact us at info@myowf.org with your name and a mailing address if you need a hard copy of this manual.
Under certain circumstances, the Foundation may be able to help you with a cost match when working with one or another Federal program. See our grant program for more information.
6. Legislative and local advocacy
Do you want to advocate for wildlife conservation but don’t know where to begin? There are many things that you can do and our Wildlife Ambassador, Suzanne Linford can help orient you.
Get in touch with Suzanne to learn more about how to advocate for wildlife or to schedule a presentation for your association or group: suzanne@myowf.org
To find out who your elected officials are, visit this link.
Here is some pending legislation that your elected official should be supporting:
Suzanne Linford
When my husband and I moved to Bend in 2007 from the SF Bay Area, I brought a liberal arts education and teaching credential earned from UC Berkeley, a lifelong curiosity in social and natural history; and skills from diverse employment, that would prove very useful. I was experienced in translating technical information into English everyone could understand, developing networks, managing conflict resolution and developing programs that were funded by federal grants. But mostly, I hated to be bored.
I started volunteering as an Interpreter at the High Desert Museum in Bend where learned to speak about the social history, natural history and wildlife of the high desert. The people I spoke to on these subjects taught me what the public knew, what they didn’t know and what interested them.
Most importantly, training in Interpretation taught me to be relational to whatever audience I was speaking to and to adapt accordingly. My education in all these subjects is ongoing.
I earned a Certification as a Master Naturalist from Oregon State University in Corvallis, and in 2016 co-founded a small nonprofit – Protect Animal Migration (PAM). Three wildlife biologists from ODOT, ODFW and the Deschutes National Forest and I started giving talks about wildlife and the need for wildlife crossings. This has expanded to the newest generation of wildlife outreach, Protect Animal Migration and Movement (PAMM) which is education on a landscape level of conservation. I am very fortunate to have the Oregon Wildlife Foundation as a supporter in many ways and the partners who have helped me and PAM/PAMM along the way.
The driving motivation for me is to give people information that they might use to become stewards of wildlife and wildlife habitat and supporters of land use that is essential for conservation of our natural world. It’s never ending and never boring.
See how we’re supporting regional wildlife crossing projects
The Foundation is the fiscal sponsor for the Southern Oregon Wildlife Crossing Coalition (SOWCC), a group formed to reestablish east-west habitat connectivity for a multitude of wildlife species within the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument in southern Oregon.
More than 17,000 vehicles traverse this corridor of I-5, between Ashland and the California border every day, creating an almost permanent barrier to wildlife movement and increased risk for wildlife-vehicle collisions and accidents.
Success! The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) was awarded a grant from the Federal Highway Administration’s Wildlife Crossing Pilot Program for the design and construction of an overcrossing at the Mariposa Preserve location approximately 3.5 miles north of the border with California.
Once an intergovernmental agreement is signed, work to complete engineering will begin with construction slated to begin in early 2028.
See https://myowf.org/sowcc for more detailed information about this project
SW Oregon
Central Oregon
In central Oregon, mule deer and elk engage in a semi-annual migration between their winter range in the high desert and their summer range in the foothills of the Cascades. Deer and elk have been making this journey for thousands of years; long before the construction of highway 97 and 20 bisected their migration routes. Migration events and local movement puts animals on roads which sometimes lead to vehicle collisions with consequences for both wildlife and people.
Several dedicated wildlife crossing structures have been built along Highway 97 between Bend and Chemult, but more are needed on Highways 97 and 20, and Century Drive to truly address the problem of wildlife-vehicle collisions in central Oregon.
Lava Butte Wildlife Crossing Project
Completed in 2012 on Highway 97, just south of Bend, the Lava Butte Project consists of two wildlife underpasses. Previously, this section of the highway was a hotspot for vehicle strikes. These underpasses have reduced wildlife-vehicle collisions by 90% within the project area.
Gilchrist Wildlife Crossing Project
Completed in 2022, further south on 97 near the town of Gilchrist, a wildlife undercrossing is reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions in a seven-mile stretch of highway that averages 50 vehicle strikes per year. Monitoring of this underpass, with motion-detecting cameras, is currently underway.
Bend to Suttle (B2S) Lake Wildlife Passage Initiative
The Foundation is the fiscal sponsor for the B2S Wildlife Crossing Coalition, a group formed to address wildlife-vehicle collisions along Highway 20 between Suttle Lake and Bend.
This section of highway has the highest frequency of deer and elk wildlife-vehicle collisions anywhere in Oregon, with 350-600 animals killed by vehicles every year.
With partial funding support from our Watch for Wildlife Fund, a wildlife crossing mitigation analysis and conceptual design for four preferred crossing locations were recently completed.
ODOT has received some funding from the Coalition to begin the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) assessment on USFS land, surveying, and geotechnical investigation. That work is pending agreements and permitting.
Success! The recent award of $689k from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board along with support from ODFW’s Conservation & Recreation Fund, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Roundhouse Foundation, Oregon Hunters Association, and individual gifts from many supporters, we’ve raised just over $1MM. Enough funding to move this project confidently into phase II - design and engineering of 4 overcrossings to be built near the base of Black Butte on highway 20.
See https://www.bend2suttlelakepassage.org/ for more detailed information about this project.
Highway 97, MP 190 Overcrossing Project
The Foundation has committed up to $100k from the Watch for Wildlife Fund for this overcrossing project near milepost 190 on Highway 97, approximately 4.5 miles south of Crescent. A Design Alternatives Plan was written for this project in 2014, but no further action was taken due to a lack of funding.
We are working on an agreement with ODOT to move this project toward engineering and design. The funds allocated will be used to begin field scoping of the crossing location, including survey and geotechnical assessment.
Highway 97, Walker Rim Wildlife Crossing Project
The Foundation has committed up to $100k from the Watch for Wildlife Fund to advance conceptual design for at least one priority wildlife crossing location in a corridor between mileposts 193 and 208 on Highway 97. A 2014 report based on wildlife-vehicle collision data and field visits by biologists from ODOT, U.S. Forest Service, the Klamath Tribe, and ODFW identified a total of five priority crossing locations within this 15-mile section of 97.
We are working on an agreement with ODOT to advance at least one priority location toward engineering and design. The funds allocated will be used for desk and field scoping, identification of the most promising of the five priority crossing locations, surveying, and geotechnical investigation.
NE Oregon
OR 82 and I-84
The Foundation is the fiscal sponsor for the Wallowa County Wildlife Crossing Wildlife Project (WCWCP), a coalition of local organizations, state, and federal agencies formed to address wildlife-vehicle collisions along Highway 82 and the movement barrier that Interstate 84 is in NE Oregon for wildlife.
We’re focused on Highway 82, between the towns of Wallowa and Enterprise, a corridor with the highest density of wildlife-vehicle collisions in NE Oregon.
The Coalition has raised the funding needed for a wildlife crossing mitigation analysis and conceptual design for up to 10 passage solutions at preferred locations within the corridor.
This Phase I process has already begun and is slated for completion by September 2025
Interstate 84 is almost a complete barrier to wildlife movement. Our goal for I-84 in NE Oregon is to increase wildlife access across I-84 by retrofitting existing bridges and culverts to accommodate wildlife use and, as needed, building dedicated wildlife passage structures to increase genetic diversity and resilience to climate change impacts, particularly degraded habitat due to drought and more frequent wildfire events.
The Coalition has begun fundraising for a Phase I assessment of two segments of I-84 in NE Oregon. The first is approximately 16 miles east of Pendleton between mileposts 227 and 234. The second highway segment lies between mileposts 246 and 253.
Portland Metro Area
Harborton Frog Crossing Project (Hwy 30 near Linnton)
The Foundation is the fiscal sponsor of the Harborton Frog Crossing Coalition and a proposed project located near Harborton Drive on Highway 30 in the community of Linnton.
This is the location where volunteers with the Frog Shuttle are working to conserve a subpopulation of Northern red-legged frogs. See https://myowf.org/fiscal-sponsorship and scroll to “Linnton Frogs” to learn more.
The Frog Shuttle isn’t a long-term solution to conservation of this sub-population of red-legged frogs so the Coalition commissioned a wildlife crossing mitigation analysis and conceptual design for a dedicated passage structure to address the unique needs of this species.
The Phase I report was published in November 2024
Fundraising for Phase II, final design and engineering of the undercrossing will begin soon.
Because Northern red-legged frogs are not classified as endangered and are also not a threat to motorist safety, our project doesn’t qualify for most sources of federal and state wildlife crossing funding. Because of this we’ll need to concentrate our fundraising efforts on private sources of support.
Palensky Wildlife Crossing Project (Hwy 30, 2 miles north of Linnton)
This project was completed in Fall 2024 and is currently being monitored for use by Northern red-legged frogs, other amphibians, and smaller wildlife species.
Oregon Coast
Humboldt or coastal marten are a sub-species of American marten and make their home along the coast of Oregon and northern California. With an estimated total Oregon population of only 71 individuals, the loss of even a single individual is significant. Currently, one of the largest contributors to mortality among Humboldt marten are vehicle strikes on Highway 101 and along the TransPacific Parkway near North Bend. This project is focused on potential crossing locations between the Siuslaw River and Coos Bay on Highway 101.
The goal of this project is to reduce vehicle-related mortality of Humboldt marten and other wildlife by retrofitting existing highway infrastructure like culverts and bridges or building new structures in areas where marten presence is documented.
This project is being managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service with a coalition of federal and state agencies, and community-based organizations providing technical and other assistance to the effort.
With funding support from our Watch for Wildlife Fund and other sources, a consulting team has been commissioned to conduct a wildlife crossing mitigation analysis to determine the best locations and design alternatives for crossings within the target highway corridor.
