Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
tures, such as bears, deer, and wildcats, to gaping tunnels where they can
cross beneath busy northern highways. This increases safety for the animals
and the drivers, and saves money. In other places, such as Banf National
Park in Alberta, Canada, scenic bridges are built exclusively for wildlife
passage.
Road right-of-ways often include substantial undeveloped spaces that can
also benei t wildlife. Enabling natural grasslands and shrublands to i ll in
along the road network's verges and medians may benei t sensitive prairie and
chaparral species. Taking care to limit disturbance of these areas during nest-
ing is another simple way roads can be made less deadly to birds. In Canada,
for example, twenty-i ve thousand eggs and nestlings are likely destroyed by
roadway mowing each year.
One day we may move about cities in suspended gondolas or through
sealed pneumatic tubes that minimally af ect wildlife. Until that time, de-
signing, retroi tting, and maintaining roads that consider the needs of the
animals we live with could go a long way toward increasing subirdia's bio-
logical diversity. Converting some roadways to pedestrian walkways and
providing naturalistic trails within cities would increase their livability
for humans and other creatures. Ecological road design, however, is part of
a larger connectivity issue that is best solved with coordinated regional
planning.
Ensure there are functional connections between land and water.
Connectivity
among the green and blue spaces within a city—its outdoor recreation sites,
parks, wild tracts, rivers, lakes, and wetlands—while benei cial to birds, is
absolutely essential to the well-being of i shes, reptiles, amphibians, mam-
mals, and many of the insects upon which they and we depend. These homes
