Alberta is taking bids for construction of a massive wildlife overpass in the southwest portion of the Canadian province. Specifically, it will be over the busy Trans-Canada Highway east of Canmore, a small town about 65 miles west of Calgary and just outside of Banff National Park.
That part of the country is rich with wildlife including elk, grizzly bears, deer, moose, bighorn sheep, mountain lions and other species.
“The Trans-Canada Highway continues to be a deadly highway corridor for wildlife and traffic volumes are only going to increase over time,” Tony Clevenger, a Banff-based biologist, told the Rocky Mountain Outlook. “It will be important that Alberta Transportation allocates funding to monitor the overpass to evaluate how well it functions at moving wildlife and reducing roadkills in the area.”
There are currently more than three dozen wildlife underpasses and overpasses through Banff National Park. Combined with fencing designed to channel wildlife under or over the roadway, the projects reportedly reduced vehicle-wildlife collisions by more than 80 percent.
(Photo credit: ParksCanada)