Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Keeping neighborhoods and cities distinctive by emphasizing their natu-
ral features reduces biotic homogenization, but other design principles aimed
at reducing impediments to animal movement in particular are especially im-
portant to those that, unlike birds, cannot l y.
Create safe passage across roads and highways.
Roads increasingly crisscross
Earth. In 2013, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency measured nearly forty
million miles of roads, both paved and unpaved, on the planet. If we could
aim these tracks toward our moon, they would stretch there and back more
than eighty-three times! Though most birds safely navigate this tangle of
concrete, gravel, and dirt each day, the world's reptiles, amphibians, and
mammals fare much worse.
A slight wrinkle in the road caught my attention as I drove on Junipero
Serra Boulevard along the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, Cali-
fornia. A bright yellow and black “newt crossing” sign told me this was no
ordinary speed bump. Rather, it concealed a culvert that was one of three
amphibian tunnels under this road installed by the university to allow Cali-
fornia tiger salamanders, Pacii c treefrogs, and western toads to migrate
safely between their upland winter homes and the wetlands they require for
breeding. It was a more technical solution than the road closed in New Jersey
on behalf of spotted salamanders, but both strategies are simple, elegant, and
ef ective at enabling many creatures to safely cross our extensive network of
roads.
Driving at slow speeds and creating small or temporary crossing lanes
probably spare the lives of millions of herps and mammals in subirdia, but
more extreme solutions are needed along the high-speed freeways that con-
nect our cities. “Moose-proof fences” funnel moose and other large crea-
