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Last week, the North Carolina state General Assembly passed its first budget since 2023. In it, lawmakers allocated $10.2 million every two years to help the state’s animals cross the road.
This is the second time the state legislature has designated funding for wildlife crossings. It set aside a $2 million investment in 2023.
Before modern roads, western North Carolina’s nonhuman animal inhabitants wandered freely from mountaintops to valleys to streams, from east to west and north to south, in search of favorable weather, safety, food, and water. Even though asphalt and concrete now have crept into their territory, animals —coyotes, deer, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, elk, and more — are still determined to get where they are going, with dangerous and often deadly results.
Between 2022 and 2024, there were 63,000 wildlife collisions in the state. They’re not only deadly for the state’s fauna, but also for the state’s drivers. In that same period, 2,866 people were injured, and 23 died from those incidents.
Wildlife crossings can help both drivers and four-legged road-crossers increase their chances of survival, advocates say.
The new funding will funnel to the North Carolina Department of Transportation, which is responsible for the construction of safe wildlife passages. The department doesn’t know yet how exactly the funding will be spent, but it will go towards independent projects or match amounts for partnerships.
“Every project has its own dollar amount,” said David Uchiyama, spokesperson for NCDOT in western North Carolina. Wildlife crossings can range greatly in size and scale. There are foot-wide and foot-deep ditches with a grate on top, just big enough for a salamander to slither through, and there are entire bridges built for large animals like elk and bears. One example of that is the Corridor K project in Graham County over NC-143.
To create the road crossing, NCDOT regularly consults with independent groups and other agencies – like the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.
About three years ago the partnership formalized, and NCDOT must now consult NCWRC for advice during road projects and bridge replacements, said NCWRC western North Carolina transportation coordinator Dave McHenry. He said that after Helene, the work has become even more important.
“The flood took out a lot of structure and left a lot of bare banks and dirt,” McHenry said. “Some of the repair work is going to be hardened slopes which are not necessarily conducive to all wildlife movements.” He’s hoping to retrofit some of the stream flow culverts under the highway to be better suited for animals by keeping some of them drier.
Helene recovery is a big priority for wildlife crossing advocates, said Jeffrey Hunter, the southern Appalachian director of the National Parks Conservation Association. The group has been trying to drum up attention for the issue with his coalition, Safe Passage. The Pigeon River Gorge section of I-40 is a major concern, he said.
“Hurricane Helene, unfortunately, damaged the one place in the corridor where wild life could cross successfully,” Hunter said. A land bridge on top of one of the highway tunnels was eroded by the runoff to almost a 90-degree angle.
Beyond disaster recovery, Hunter said, wildlife crossings make the work of surviving climate change easier for our region’s wildlife.
“Wildlife in general is responding to climate by moving towards the poles,” he said. Every roadway in Appalachia that bisects the mountain range from east to west can become a barrier to that movement. “And so, making these roads more permeable for wildlife to allow them to safely cross, separating them from the motorists, allows the landscape to be more resilient and provide some resilience for these animals.”
