Blaine County is working in conjunction with the Western Transportation Institute to study and chart where animal paths and highway traffic intersect—and they are looking for help from you.
The project is called "Ketchum on the Road: Wildlife Sightings," and seeks to gather information provided from motorists on wildlife, either dead or alive, along state Highway 75 from Timmerman Junction, at the intersection with U.S. Highway 20, to Ketchum.
A Web site has been designed to collect consistent and spatially accurate information about animals that are killed by traffic or who successfully cross the road. The project was made possible through a grant from the Idaho Department of Transportation.
"This has been an ongoing problem (wildlife and traffic)," said Don Wright, Blaine County operations manager. "When the funds became available we set up a (Web) site for tracking animal road crossings."
The reason for the study is to use wildlife-vehicle collision data to demonstrate how this information can be used to aid transportation management decision-making and mitigation planning for wildlife and motorist safety, states the Western Transportation Institute's Web site.
The site goes on to say that most charted information regarding animal routes in relation to highways is sporadic at best. Maintenance personnel collect this information opportunistically, rather than methodically or systematically, often resulting in spatially inaccurate data.
"Most of the people who work along the highway know the hot spots," Wright said. "It will be interesting to see how the data computes."
To properly mitigate road impacts on wildlife and motorist safety, transportation departments need to be able to identify what specific areas are most susceptible to high road-kill rates. Research on wildlife-vehicle collisions has shown that they do not occur randomly but are spatially clustered, the institute said.
The information gathered will be incorporated in the transportation management decision-making process. Similar studies conducted by the institute have run for one year, but may be extended for several years after that.
When areas along roadways are deemed to be hot spots for animal activity, the institute works with local agencies to promote ecological connectivity, be it through animal crossings above or beneath the roads, or simply by placing signs warning drivers to be alert.
The easiest way to access the wildlife sightings Web site is through blainecounty.org. From that page there is a link labeled "Ketchum on the Road," which has a virtual map where animal sightings can be recorded.
"We encourage people to visit the site. The more information the better," Wright said.
