But one resilient mountain lion did make it across. 

P-22, a male mountain lion from the Santa Monica range successfully navigated the maze of cars and found himself in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. He lived there for more than 10 years, occupying the smallest home range—roughly eight square miles— that has ever been recorded for an adult male mountain lion. Though he was able to survive, P-22 was never able to find a mate in his limited home range. 

P-22 was euthanized in December of 2022 after officials captured him and discovered injuries from a vehicle collision and other chronic conditions. The life of this tough feline became a rallying cry to raise funds for the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing being built over US-101 to restore habitat connectivity. This busy road was one that P-22 had to cross on his way to Griffith Park, and it is the primary cause of genetic isolation—which has led to inbreeding— of the Santa Monica Mountains mountain lion population. 

It is highways like US-101 and other human development paired with natural features like mountain ranges that have separated populations of mountain lions in California into six distinct genetic populations. A few of these populations live in the Central Coast region, spanning the area between San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles, which provides large swaths of habitat for mountain lions and other wildlife. However, this area is becoming increasingly fragmented and isolated from other healthy and more stable populations of these cats in the Sierra Nevada. 

“Preserving and restoring connectivity in this region and reconnecting it across highways like US-101 to the Sierra Nevada is essential to prevent genetic isolation and keep regional ecosystems, like those in the Central California coast—which rely on apex predators to maintain biodiversity—from collapsing,” said Greg Costello, U.S. Connectivity Program Director with the Center for Large Landscape Conservation. 

On February 12, 2026, the California Fish and Game Commission voted to list certain population segments of mountain lions in Southern and Central California as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act. The listing gives protections, among others, to the southern California Central Coast mountain lion Distinct Population Segments (DSP) due to concerns that they could become extinct in the foreseeable future due to fragmented habitat, barriers to movement, and displacement by humans.       

“As development in the area increases, it is urgent to protect threatened mountain lion populations in California to preserve biodiversity in the region and protect local ecosystems,” Costello said. “These big cats need to move to find food and mates, and dense networks of communities and roads can limit their movement, reducing gene flow.” 

California Mountain Lion Populations

CLLC is beginning work with California Department of Fish & Wildlife, California Department of Transportation, Santa Barbara County (and City), San Luis Obispo County, and other partners in California’s Central Coast region to restore connectivity and safeguard mountain lions and other wildlife. 

The Central California Coast Connectivity Project will identify wildlife movement corridors by combining advanced habitat connectivity mapping and modeling. The results will help guide county and municipal governments and land use planners in preserving these important areas, potentially creating a model for use in other parts of the state. CLLC will begin science assessments this fall with a goal of completing the data analysis to present to stakeholders in the region next fall.  

Understanding the habitat needs and movement patterns of these cats, and other wildlife, is the critical first step toward securing the future for diverse and healthy wildlife populations along the Central California Coast. 

Featured image caption: Mountain Lion P-35 captured by a camera trap. Credit: NPS photo

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Grizzly bears are protected as a Threatened species under the Endangered Species Act after mortality from hunting, trapping, poisoning, and habitat fragmentation in the 19^th and early 20^th century, leading to extinction of certain populations. They used to range continuously from Alaska through western Canada, west to the Pacific Coast, east through the Great Plains, and south into central Mexico. They now survive within about 6 percent of their historical range, with populations in the lower 48 states primarily found within Montana, Wyoming, Idaho. 

Grizzly bears are habitat generalists, thriving in nearly every habitat type, provided they can stay safe from human impacts. While their populations in some parts of the Mountain West have been increasing, their reproduction rate is quite slow, and they can be prone to conflict when near human populations, encountering issues with people whether from recreation, agriculture, hunting, food attractants, highways, or railways.

Habitat fragmentation caused by roads and other infrastructure can lead to reduced access to food and water, wildlife-vehicle collisions, limited access to mates leading to potential inbreeding, and more human-wildlife conflict. In addition, the future of grizzly population management is uncertain with recent changes to a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service rule (July 2026).

As this keystone species continues to recover, it is important now more than ever to find ways for humans and grizzlies to coexist in shared landscapes, and one strategy is ensuring habitat connectivity. Ensuring that grizzlies have appropriate movement corridors away from people reduces the likelihood of conflict with humans. 

The Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC) thinks and works on connectivity at local, state, national, and international scales, and here in our Montana-based offices, we are particularly aware of the impacts that more humans on the landscape are creating for grizzlies and other species. We aim to help reduce habitat loss and fragmentation and to keep bears and other animals moving safely through the roads, railways, communities, and similar structures of our human footprint. 

Much of CLLC’s work is focused on helping wildlife move across roadways, working within the science called road ecology or transportation ecology. 

“One of the significant sources of human-caused mortality for grizzlies is wildlife-vehicle collisions,” said Kylie Paul, Road Ecologist with CLLC. “On some highways, the traffic volume is too high for the bears to cross, creating a barrier to movement and cutting them off from accessing habitat and resources like seasonal berry crops or potential mates.” 

Wildlife crossing structures, like overpasses and underpasses, when combined with sufficient fencing, can effectively reduce this mortality and create the opportunity for a reconnected landscape. Research has found that grizzly bears have specific needs when it comes to designing a wildlife crossing structure. 

“Grizzly bear males will use both overpasses and underpasses of varying sizes,” Paul said. “But as is often the case with many wildlife species, females with cubs tend to be wary of potentially risky or unfamiliar circumstances, preferring the more visually open overpasses or open-span bridge underpasses.” 

When staff at CLLC are proposing, advocating for, and helping design wildlife crossings for grizzlies and other species here in Montana, such as at Sixmile Creek near Missoula, on US-191 near Big Sky, and at Dome Mountain outside of Gardiner, we advocate for a design that will work for female grizzlies.

We also use remote cameras and other monitoring methods, along with collision and roadkill data, to understand where grizzly bears and other wildlife are moving, so that crossings are built in the right locations for the target species. 

Many solutions working together will help keep grizzly bears safely on the move and out of trouble. This includes individual measures like putting our trash in bear-resistant containers or carrying bear spray and making noise when we’re recreating throughout the bears’ homelands. And it will require conservation and policy solutions, like wildlife crossings and preserved corridors that help bears move through the landscape safely. 

Learn more about wildlife crossings and our U.S. Connectivity Program 

Top Image: A grizzly bear crosses a road and climbs over a guard rail. Credit: Adobe Stock

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Wildlife crossings are becoming a more widespread solution to reconnect fragmented habitats, keep animals on the move, and keep drivers safe. When looking to build new roads, it is ideal to completely avoid fragmenting habitat, but for existing roads, canopy bridges can be an effective mitigation measure. 

In places like the Amazon rainforest and the country of Costa Rica, these crossings are designed for arboreal species that prefer to move through the treetops such as opossums, sloths, and monkeys. Canopy bridges are a specific type of wildlife crossing solution that bridges the gap in forest canopies created by roads or other barriers.

There are many different designs for these structures, which can consist of anything from a single line of durable material like thick rope to larger, rigid structures made of metal or concrete that can accommodate both arboreal and terrestrial species. Some are also made of recycled materials, such as old fire hoses or old electric cables. These simple designs are relatively inexpensive as compared to other types of wildlife crossing structures and easier to install. 

Canopy bridges have been implemented in many countries worldwide, such as Costa Rica, Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia, and India. The Center for Large Landscape Conservation is currently working with the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation of Costa Rica to launch a Mitigation Measures Manual for Wildlife Friendly Roads, with funding from the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF), which will develop the nation’s first official guidelines to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions and minimize the ecological impacts of roads. As part of this project, our team reviewed the existing types of canopy bridges in the country and in other places of the world to synthesize what has been working and identify best practices. 

Below, we outline some of the different types of canopy bridge structures worldwide and provide examples of what types of species they serve.  

Single-Line Aerial Crossings

These are made of a single line of durable material like steel cable or rope. They are placed in areas of partial canopy cover, and the ends are anchored to sturdy trees, ensuring tension and stability.  This design is suitable for a wide range of arboreal species from small rodents and opossums to sloths. Also, it is more applicable to narrow roads due to its limited rigidity over longer spans. 

Two-Line Aerial Crossings

This type of canopy bridge is made with two lines of rope or cable and can be vertical or horizontal. Many arboreal animals with prehensile tails that function like a fifth limb, such as kinkajous, sometimes hold the second line with their tails to increase their balance while crossing. These structures are usually used for short distances of 20 meters or less and are anchored to trees or posts.  

Vertical Ladder-type Aerial Crossings 

Ladder-type canopy bridges have two anchor lines secured to trees or posts with connecting ties between the anchor lines to provide stability and support for the crossing. These are best utilized on roadways less than 30 meters wide.  

Horizontal Ladder-type Aerial Crossings  

This type of crossing features a similar construction as the vertical ladder, but in a horizontal position. Larger arboreal animals that walk with four limbs such as howler monkeys use the ladder steps to move along the canopy bridge, but many smaller animals use only one of the exterior ropes to cross. These crossings can be anchored to trees or posts, as required by connectivity needs, tree types, or the presence of power lines.  

Triangular Aerial Crossings  

These crossings combine a horizontal ladder or net with a single cable at the top, forming a triangle. The bottom part is aimed at providing more stability to the crossing structure, while the upper line is for animals who use their tails for balance. These crossings are typically over 25 meters wide and usually feature two posts located on each side of roadways since they are heavier. When the canopy bridge is not directly fixed in a tree, they should be connected to the canopy by multiple ropes, so animals can access them. 

Rigid Crossings  

Rigid wildlife crossings (see video, below) are elevated structures that can be used by arboreal animals. They are typically comprised of metal or concrete frameworks designed to provide enhanced stability and durability.   

Canopy bridges were first installed in various countries by conservation projects and community-based NGOs, and over the past few decades they have been implemented and monitored through numerous research initiatives. More recently, they are being recognized by transport agencies as an official mitigation measure to reduce the impacts of roads on arboreal animals. In Costa Rica, for example, canopy bridges are being officially installed by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport as part of recent road projects. They are also recognized as a complementary mitigation measure used by electric utility companies in areas where there is a risk of wildlife electrocution, alongside power line insulation and anti-climbing devices. 

Monitoring studies have shown that canopy bridges are used by a wide variety of species, from possums, squirrels, and civets, to larger primates, such as howler monkeys and even orangutans, however, much remains to be learned about what is the best design for each species. More recently, researchers have been comparing different canopy bridge designs by implementing them side by side and comparing the frequency and behavior of species using them. Hopefully this new knowledge will help governments and communities increase the implementation this cost-effective solution for reducing the impact of roads on wildlife. 

_{Top Photo: A brown howler monkey (Alouatta guariba) crosses a horizontal ladder canopy bridge over a road in southern Brazil. Credit: Precisa}

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When people think about the Appalachians, they picture mountains. I think about a rich landscape of mountains and valleys woven together by rivers so old that the mountains rose up around them. It’s this mix that creates the sweeping views we love, from the Blue Ridge Parkway to the hills just beyond our back yards. But the Appalachians are so much more than breathtaking scenery. They form the backbone of a region that’s essential for the well-being of people and wildlife alike.

The northern reaches of the Appalachians are home to the largest intact broad-leaf forest in the world. In my neck of the woods in West Virginia, we have high elevation bogs like Cranberry Glades and the Dolly Sods Wilderness, which you won’t find again until you’re all the way up in Canada. You’ll find two of the oldest rivers in the world, the New River and the French Broad River. This unique geography makes the region one of the most ecologically rich places on Earth.

Not surprisingly, we have amazing wildlife, too. Elk, black bears, bobcats, and hellbenders are iconic, but the Appalachians are also a global hotspot for salamanders and freshwater mussels. This landscape is remarkably beautiful and globally significant for its biodiversity.

Animals Are on the Move

Wildlife are on the move across the Appalachians, and this movement is a vital part of functional landscapes that provide all the benefits people rely on, like fish and game to eat, clean water to drink, protection from floods, and the many outdoor recreation opportunities we enjoy.

The Appalachians may not have big game migrations that are as well-known as the pronghorn and mule deer migrations of the West, but we have a diversity of wildlife that must be able to move freely through the landscape throughout their life cycles. Deer move daily between areas where they forage and where they sleep. The spotted salamander wakes from winter dormancy and migrates up to a quarter mile to vernal pools to reproduce. Right now, millions of birds are migrating north through the region on their way to summer breeding grounds, as black bears are emerging from their hibernation and spreading out across the landscape.

Climate change is also forcing animals to move. As the climate changes, habitat is shifting and wildlife are generally moving north or to higher elevations in search of suitable climates. In the eastern U.S., some species ranges have already shifted nearly 30 miles since the 1980s.

The Appalachian Mountains are nature’s highway, allowing wildlife to move and adapt now and into the future.

In order to maintain wildlife movement, we need to conserve large, connected areas of habitat. Protecting expansive landscapes helps ensure there is enough habitat to sustain wildlife throughout every stage of their life cycle, through seasons of drought or extreme storms, and long-term climate change. These areas must be connected in a network that allows animals to move freely in search of food, shelter, and one another.

Where Wildlife and Roads Collide

People are on the move too, and we use roads to do that. Roads are also where our movements collide with animal movements.

Collisions with wildlife are extremely dangerous. Each year in the U.S., 1- 2 million wildlife-vehicle collisions occur resulting in 200 human deaths and 28,000 injuries. In the Appalachians, the risk is especially high. Every state in the region is ranked as high- or medium-risk for collisions and West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Virginia are among the top ten states for wildlife-vehicle collisions.

These wildlife-vehicle collisions are also expensive. The cumulative cost is estimated to be $10 billion dollars in economic impacts. On average, a collision with a deer will have a total cost of $19,000. This includes all costs associated with the collisions, such as medical, vehicle repair, and lost wages paid by the driver, as well as the state paying for carcass removal or first responders. If you hit one of Central Appalachia’s growing elk herd, that will incur an average cost of about $75,000!

Even if you never hit an animal on the road, you will pay as insurance companies pass the high costs of these collisions to their policyholders.

For wildlife, the impacts are just as severe. Roads fragment and disconnect habitats, preventing wildlife from moving freely by serving as a direct barrier if the traffic volume is high enough. Millions of animals are hit by vehicles each year and hundreds of thousands are killed in vehicle collisions. And the impacts are not just to terrestrial species. Poorly designed river and stream crossings, such as undersized culverts under roads, block the movement of fish, salamanders, and other aquatic animals impacting the health of these species across the region.

The Path to Safer, Connected Landscapes

The good news is that lots of work is already being done to implement solutions to increasing fragmentation and loss of connectivity within the Appalachians.

Across the region, states are working to conserve large, connected landscapes and reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions. Vermont’s Conservation Design is guiding the state’s efforts to ensure enough of the landscape is conserved to support its wildlife and provide nature’s benefits to its residents. Virginia’s Wildlife Corridor Action Plan is guiding efforts to protect vital wildlife habitat corridors and reduce wildlife-vehicle conflicts.

Wildlife crossing structures such as overpasses and underpasses allow wildlife to move over or under roads, and uninterrupted through streams and rivers. Virginia built its first wildlife crossing structure in 2005 and Pennsylvania has constructed 33 crossings. The structures are effective, reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions by 80 to 97%. These structures can pay for themselves. One project in Virginia upgraded transportation infrastructure to be more wildlife friendly and the investment paid for itself within two years by reducing costly collisions.

Properly designed culverts, ones that mimic natural stream bottoms and allow animals to move through them, are less susceptible to flood damage and debris blockage making culverts and stream crossings more resilient to flooding.

Nine Appalachian states received grants from the Federal Highway Administration’s Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program, a five-year, $350-million grant program established in 2021 by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, to conduct assessments, develop plans that reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions, and build wildlife crossing structures.

The current Wildlife Crossing Pilot Program will end after this year, but bipartisan legislation to permanently authorize this program was introduced in both houses of Congress at the end of last year (H.R. 6078, S. 3503, S. 3556).

Many Appalachian states are considering or have already passed their own landscape connectivity and wildlife corridor legislation to plan for, pay for, and implement landscape conservation. Virginia legislators introduced a bill that would establish tax on data centers and use the revenue for landscape conservation, including implementing the Virginia Wildlife Corridor Action Plan.

There are pathways to conserving and connecting our landscape to ensure wildlife safely move and communities benefit. These pathways will require continued actions at the federal, state, and local levels.

Protecting What Protects Us

The same landscapes that define the Appalachians also sustain the people who call it home. We need to conserve this landscape to help sustain our wildlife, but we also must do it to have cleaner air and water, safer roads, and more resilience to climate change. When we keep Appalachia connected, we’re not just protecting nature, we’re protecting ourselves.

This post originally appeared on the blog of ReImagine Appalachia

Jacob Blandford is the Appalachian Landscape Conservation Coordinator at the Center for Large Landscape Conservation. For nearly a decade, CLLC has advanced solutions for habitat connectivity and conservation in the Appalachian region, championing a large-landscape approach that addresses the entire ecoregion, from Alabama to the eastern Canadian provinces.

_{Top image: Autumn vista in the Appalachian Mountains of western Maryland – Adobe Stock}

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We set off early, dressed for a hot, half-day drive along Brazil Federal Highway 262 (BR-262). The busy road passes through the tropical savanna of the Cerrado biome and into a corner of the Pantanal biome, the world’s largest tropical wetland, which spans parts of Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay.   

Known worldwide as an ecotourism destination for its rich biodiversity, the Pantanal biome (a biome is a landscape-scale region delineated by its unique ecology, including climate, plants and animals), is home to many of Brazil’s quirky—to this North American—and elegant, iconic species. They include the feathery tailed, gentle-looking giant anteater, the stub-nosed, water-loving capybara (the world’s largest rodent!), and the tapir, a three toed ungulate with an elongated snout that is most closely related to the rhinoceros.

However, wildlife habitat in and around this vast, tropical landscape is gradually shrinking as land is cleared for production of some of the country’s biggest exports such as beef and soybeans.  

And wildlife movement is increasingly hampered by highways. 

Our CLLC team of three had recently arrived at Campo Grande, Brazil, from our distant homes in mountain towns of Montana and the beach town of Florianopolis, Brazil, in advance of the Convention on Migratory Species’ CoP-15. This international gathering of leaders aimed to address urgent conservation challenges facing migratory species, and this was our side trip to see some of these challenges first-hand. 

“I expected to get out of the car a few times to look at wildlife crossing structures with their new fencing and maybe a road-killed animal or two. But what we actually saw was deeply disturbing: an unfolding pantheon of animals that I had only dreamed of glimpsing in the wild in my lifetime, but laid out on the road, killed by vehicles.” 

Our team consisted of Fernanda Teixeira, Linear Infrastructure Program Advisor; Aaron Laur, International Connectivity Program Manager; and myself, Chief Program Officer. We arrived well into our own mental journeys of understanding the deep challenges of, and increasing opportunities to address, the impacts to wildlife of linear transport infrastructure like roads, railways, canals and powerlines. We were especially eager to experience the Pantanal and surrounding area, location of a multi-year project we have engaged in to identify and conserve jaguar movement corridors, and to travel on BR-262 through a corner of the biome. 

The “Highway of Death”

BR-262 is known as the “highway of death” for its high rates of wildlife mortality caused by vehicle strikes. In just one year, 2,263 animal carcasses were recorded on this stretch of road. Several factors converge to create this deadly effect. The road runs through a biodiversity hotspot filled with species that aren’t adapted to running from predators, such as the anteaters that sit down when threatened, ready to attack with the long sharp digging claws instead of fleeing. This particular highway is a heavily used transport route for large ore trucks from active regional mines that are unlikely to brake for wildlife. During our journey we saw many, many of these trucks traveling at high speeds on BR-262. 

To address this deadly combination, conservationists have been working for years with Brazil’s government to put in place effective signage for motorists and fencing and underpasses designed for wildlife. We came to look at how the implementation of these mitigation measures was progressing and if it was helping. 

I expected to get out of the car a few times to look at wildlife crossing structures with their new fencing and maybe a road-killed animal or two. But what we actually saw was deeply disturbing: an unfolding pantheon of animals that I had only dreamed of glimpsing in the wild in my lifetime, but laid out on the road, killed by vehicles.  

I confess that I have rarely taken the time to pull over and examine roadkill, though I do occasionally keep a running tally of the animals I see as I travel high-speed highways notorious for wildlife-vehicle collisions in my home state of Montana. What I learned on that narrow, 60-mile-per-hour speed limit road in the humid heat of Brazil’s western Cerrado/eastern Pantanal region was this: There is something extraordinarily intimate—infused with wonder, both satisfying and horrifying to my intense curiosity, and deeply, deeply sad about examining a dead animal that has been killed by human intrusion to its native home.  

Standing over the animals was, for me, a moment out of time, as I considered exquisite ears, odd-shaped mouths, noses, feet, hooves, claws, and hides evolved so perfectly for exactly the role they play in their home ecosystems. But these ecosystems they had originally adapted for did not include roads. 

For the record, and because we were all keeping a tally that day on Highway 262, we observed: five armadillos (there are several kinds), three capybaras, two crab-eating foxes, two giant anteaters, two southern tamandua (arboreal anteaters), an alligator, and a South American tapir. It took us all day, cost us sunburns and heartache and dehydration, but we could not go any faster and still both truly experience what was happening and honor the animals laid out along the road. 

Signs of Hope

On balance, we did also observe progress towards de-fragmenting the landscape through mitigation measures prompted by years of research, advocacy, and cooperation across entities. Roadside fences are going up, there are new underpasses in place, and we found a new sign designed to both capture drivers’ attention and encourage them to slow down. While there were many existing signs with written warnings, this new sign was tested with citizens and is thought to be more attention-grabbing and effective in reducing speed (see photo, above).   

I am a scientist and a conservationist, a mother, and a consumer of food and energy, a citizen of planet Earth. I am not new to the grief of seeing an area that was once wildlife habitat become a place of danger riddled with barriers to movement. I have spent my life recognizing and working to reverse the impacts of the human footprint on the natural world that ultimately sustains us all. 

I am proud to work at CLLC, with colleagues like Fernanda and Aaron, where we strive to ensure that these animals in Brazil and species all over the world can live safely in their natural environments, that they have room and safe passages to move in the face of climate change, habitat impacts, and fragmentation. Much of our work happens off the roads—analyzing habitat and wildlife movement data, creating the conditions that drive conservation, working with communities to find solutions, and consulting with those designing crossings—but it is important to also see first-hand the impacts of human infrastructure. Sadly, BR-262 is not unique. The same problems are occurring all over the world and it is essential that solutions are scaled up for widespread implementation. 

One of the many ways we are doing this is through our leadership in the Latin American and Caribbean Transport Working Group, Asian Elephant Transport Working Group, and the IUCN WCPA Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group, as well as providing consultation to governments—such as Costa Rica—on how to make wildlife-friendly roads and other linear infrastructure the norm. CLLC is committed, with the help of partners and supporters, to conserving ecological connectivity and safe passage for wildlife in landscapes throughout the world.

Katie Deuel is the Chief Program Officer at the Center for Large Landscape Conservation. She works across our diverse programs to ensure they are strategic, effective, inclusive, connected and supported.  She has been a leader in biodiversity and large landscape conservation, nature-based education, and building sustainable, circular economies, as well as working extensively as a facilitator and mediator in complex systems. At the center of her work is a passion for systems thinking, cold water, and empowering people. She lives with her family in Missoula and enjoys time outside in most any form.

_{All photos by CLLC}

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The Trifinio-Fraternidad Transboundary Biosphere Reserve (TFTBR) is a land of steep mountains covered by dense tropical forest, home to iconic species such as quetzal and puma, small cities and rural villages, and a thriving coffee-growing economy. Spanning parts of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, the TFTBR is a model in transboundary environmental governance, established primarily to safeguard vital water sources that originate in the mountains and flow to major population centers in all three countries.

In 2025, the Center for Large Landscape Conservation worked with UNESCO and partners in the TFTBR on the project “Scaling up Connectivity in the Trifinio-Fraternidad Biosphere Reserve.” 

“We aimed to strengthen ecological connectivity and landscape resilience by combining science, local knowledge, and community priorities,” said Gabriel Oppler, International Connectivity Specialist at CLLC. “It also enabled cross-border cooperation for biodiversity conservation and sustainable land use in one of Central America’s most vital ecosystems.”

Oppler helped facilitate these workshops and visited reserves and national parks to better understand the landscape’s priorities and challenges. Reconvening for a trinational workshop in November, Oppler was joined by CLLC’s Linear Infrastructure Ecology Advisor Fernanda Teixeira. Participants worked together to prioritize ecological corridors—connections between habitat that allow animals to move and other ecological processes to flow—and identify specific land management actions in each corridor.

Production of corridor maps combining science, local knowledge, and community priorities

In between workshops, UNESCO and its scientific team at the University of Heidelberg and CLLC used stakeholder feedback to generate different structural connectivity models for the biosphere reserve. These models indicate areas which are likely to be easiest for wildlife to move across the landscape. The models integrate satellite imagery and around 30 datasets on factors like urban development, linear infrastructure like roads, or agricultural zones.

“The modelling involved determining the path of least resistance for species movement between the core areas of the TFTBR, nearby protected areas and other biosphere reserves, assuming that species move more freely across intact habitats like forests and other types of vegetation than across more modified lands,” explained Oppler.

The way forward: implementation of ecological corridors at scale in the biosphere reserve

In only eight months, this project laid the foundations for the implementation of ecological corridors by involving a wide range of actors, institutions, and stakeholders engaged in the TFTBR across the three countries. The products developed include:

• Definition of a shared vision for ecological connectivity, including key focal species, conservation values and challenges to guide corridor planning.
• 2025 land-use and land-cover map (validated on the ground) covering the TFTBR and surrounding areas to support planning and analysis.
• Structural connectivity models and maps using LinkageMapper and Omniscape to support connectivity planning.
• Co-constructed corridor prioritization framework to guide priority conservation actions to be implemented in the coming years.
• Multi-level connectivity funding plan based on sustainable development and biodiversity conservation initiatives.
• A set of indicators measuring the current state of ecological corridors to allow monitoring of changes over time.

The project has also produced colorful and informative materials to engage local communities, including a 14-page brochure and poster, as well as videos such as the one below.

Building on this momentum, UNESCO and its partners will move forward in the coming year with a larger-scale initiative to turn collaboration into actions, supporting ecological restoration, protecting biodiversity and creating durable economic opportunities for communities in and around the Biosphere Reserve.

This project was funded by the Kunming Biodiversity Fund (KBF) and Spain’s Autonomous Agency for National Parks (OAPN).

Check out this video, which features CLLC International Connectivity Specialist Gabriel Oppler and CLLC Linear Infrastructure Ecology Advisor Fernanda Teixeira talking about the project:

_{Top photo: Within the biosphere reserve and adjacent to Montecristo National Park in El Salvador, many producers grow coffee under the shade of banana trees and other tall trees, resulting in more flavorful coffee beans. Credit: CLLC/Gabriel Oppler}

Yellowstone National Park in the western United States is a crucial landscape populated by iconic species like bison, wolves, grizzly bears, elk and pronghorn that are part of the largest concentration of wildlife in the lower 48 states. Kafue National Park in Zambia is, similarly, a stronghold of biodiversity and hosts elephants, lions, cheetahs, wild dogs, and antelope, which all roam the vast landscape. 

Despite being thousands of miles apart, Kafue and Yellowstone share similar challenges: major roadways cut through critical habitat and impact wildlife movement. Growing traffic volume, speed, and through-traffic intensify these impacts, increasing the risk of wildlife-vehicle collisions, impacting movement patterns and fragmenting vital wildlife corridors. As a result, animals are often forced to cross dangerous roads to access food, water, and seasonal ranges—putting both wildlife and people at risk. 

CLLC has completed highway assessments alongside our partners in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE)—encompassing Yellowstone National Park and surrounding public and private lands in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho—and Kafue National Park to better understand the impact of these roads on wildlife and what we can do to mitigate those impacts. 

In 2021, a team of scientists including CLLC staff members conducted the US-191/MT-64 Wildlife & Transportation Assessment, gathering local and expert knowledge, public data, citizen science, and engineering expertise to identify 11 priority sites where mitigation measures—such as culverts, bridges, underpasses, overpasses, animal detection systems, and fencing—can improve the safety of roads for travelers and wildlife. 

“In some places, the topography lends itself better to an overpass versus an underpass,” said Elizabeth Fairbank, road ecologist with the Center. “There’s lots of recommendations for things like bridge retrofits or reconstructing a bridge at the end of its lifespan with a much larger structure, and that can benefit not only terrestrial wildlife, but also river and stream health.”  

Fairbank says that a crossing structure with fencing is the gold standard to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions by 80 to 90 percent while still maintaining habitat connectivity for wildlife but they’re not appropriate or feasible everywhere due to engineering or financial constraints or if the species of concern does not easily use crossing structures. 

In the GYE, many of the iconic species that live in the park are wide-ranging and make use of public and private lands around the park, crossing roads like US-191 and navigating other human infrastructure like fencing to do so. 

“Migratory species, like elk, are having to cross busy highways in the GYE seasonally, every year,” Fairbank said. “It’s a major issue impacting their ability to reach the resources that they need like food, water, shelter and mates to survive.” 

Elk that have been struck by vehicles are an all-too-common sight on US-191, something that CLLC is trying to change with efforts to advance crossings in an elk collision hotspot—one of the priority sites identified in the assessment. The assessment has led directly to tangible plans to build a wildlife overpass and underpass at this location. 

In Kafue National Park, the M9 highway that bisects the park presents a similar barrier to wildlife looking for water, food and mates. CLLC staff members traveled to Zambia in April 2024 to launch a comprehensive assessment of the highway in the park with the Zambian Carnivore Programme (ZCP) and Greater Kafue Landscape Ltd. (GKLL), a joint venture of Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DWNP) and African Parks (AP). 

The project’s aim was to understand exactly where and how the M9 is putting wildlife at risk. For example, the assessment data showed that wildlife-vehicle collisions and wildlife activity are concentrated where the road passes by water sources.  

“It’s important to keep track of the road’s negative impacts on the wildlife populations, and to be able to provide concrete, science-backed recommendations for how to reduce those impacts for both wildlife and people,” said Dr. Catherine Sun, Senior Quantitative Ecologist with the ZCP who worked on the project. 

According to Fernanda Teixeira, Linear Infrastructure Ecology Advisor with CLLC, the methodology for this assessment was very similar to that of the assessment completed in the GYE. Using a combination of citizen science, wildlife surveys, roadkill data and collaring, many layers of data were combined to pinpoint priority sites along the M9 where mitigation actions should be designed and implemented.  

Some of the immediate priorities identified include speed reduction and control backed by the presence of law enforcement. Some longer-term actions include relocating water sources formed during construction activities away from the road and restricting nighttime truck traffic. If these measures are introduced, they will have the potential to reduce wildlife mortality, enhance wildlife movement and improve road safety.

“Kafue is a huge national park with lots of important species like elephants, lions, cheetahs, and wild dogs,” Teixeira said. “But, the reality is, persistence of the wildlife populations in the region is not guaranteed because these animals are being killed on a road within the park.” 

The Zambian government has long known that the M9 has had an impact on Kafue wildlife populations. The new report helped them to narrow down where to implement speed reduction measures on the M9 to have the most impact. While this alone will not prevent collisions, it is a good first step in a longer-term effort. 

“This study has been an incredible project, and we are hoping to continue monitoring roadkill on the M9 with a systematic approach,” Sun said. “Long-term monitoring reveals a wealth about how wildlife persists on the landscape, sometimes in relatively wild habitat but also in places with increasing human impact. Being able to track the patterns and responses of wildlife through time is critical to providing effective conservation.” 

CLLC will continue working in both locales on future monitoring efforts to assess the effectiveness of mitigation measures that have been implemented and support the establishment of more crossings to provide safe passage for people and wildlife alike. 

_{Top photo: African wild dogs in the road, Kafue National Park – Credit: Zambian Carnivore Programme}

The post From Yellowstone to Zambia: Protecting Safe Passage for Wildlife appeared first on Center for Large Landscape Conservation.

Wildlife don’t stop at city limits, county lines, or property boundaries—and neither should local government planning. The decisions communities make today about how and where to build will shape whether future generations inherit thriving landscapes that sustain people and wildlife alike. 

That’s why CLLC created a new report on wildlife habitat connectivity and local government: to bring together the policy tools and practical strategies that every community and every community member—whether you’re a resident, planner, biologist, developer, or legislator—can consider using to help keep landscapes connected.  

The report, titled Integrating Wildlife Habitat Connectivity into Local Government Planning: Examples, Recommendations, and Resources for U.S. Towns and Counties, is a practical guide for planners and partners to weave wildlife habitat connectivity into local land use decisions. It features sample policies and ordinances from across the country, case studies of successful implementation, and best practices to support local action. 

Kylie Paul, road ecologist with the Center for Large Landscape Conservation and lead author of the report, says that local governments hold land use authority across most of the U.S. and have a unique role in shaping growth, protecting natural resources, and keeping landscapes connected.  

“Planning for connectivity isn’t just about wildlife,” said Paul. “It’s a smart growth strategy that supports open space, green infrastructure, water quality, road safety, recreation, and community resilience.” 

Examples from the report include:  

• The city of Buckeye, Arizona created a Wildlife Corridors Best Practices Guide to help planners plan for future development with wildlife in mind.  

• Lake County, Florida’s Comprehensive Plan includes a Florida Black Bear Scenic Byway Corridor Overlay District, with language to establish standards to create and maintain a safe corridor for both wildlife and people, including the construction of wildlife crossing structures. 

• Scott County, Minnesota has mapped Natural Area Corridors to guide development away from the corridors through incentives and to improve natural resource functions within them.  

• The state of Vermont has a Community Wildlife Program offering technical services and information to local governments to help find natural resource information, review town planning documents, connect with other partners, and focus on a larger regional scale for planning. 

The report highlights steps towns and counties can take, such as mapping priority habitat, clustering development, securing open space, and requiring buffers around sensitive resources. It also outlines tools like conservation design, overlay zones, and wildlife crossings, along with state-level policies and partner actions that provide critical support. 

“As development pressures rise, now is the time for local governments to embed habitat connectivity into comprehensive plans, zoning, and development review,” said Paul. “We hope the practical examples and policy language in this report will help inspire and guide communities to protect landscapes for both people and wildlife.” 

If you care about strong communities, healthy environments, and smart growth, this report is for you. 

The full report is available at: largelandscapes.org/local-planning 

Support for this project was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.  

_{Top photo: A suburb of Spokane, Washington, USA – Adobe Stock}

The post Connecting Communities and Wildlife: A Local Planning Guide appeared first on Center for Large Landscape Conservation.

With complex, sprawling ranges across the high mountains of South and Central Asia and low population densities, snow leopards are an elusive species. Over the last decade, however, urban centers and communities surrounding their habitats have become increasingly connected, with many more investments in infrastructure on the horizon. How can new linear infrastructure—including roads, railways, and power lines—meet human needs while protecting snow leopards, their prey, and the fragile ecosystems they depend on to survive?

The Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Program (GSLEP), an alliance of the 12 countries comprising the snow leopard’s range, formed a working group of scientists and conservationists to create guidance for how infrastructure development can integrate protections for these big cats. Led by the International Snow Leopard Trust, WWF, and the Center for Large Landscape Conservation, the working group presented a guidance document, Guiding the Future of Linear Infrastructure Development in Snow Leopard Landscapes, at the 9^th GSLEP Steering Committee Meeting in Cholpon Ata, Kyrgyz Republic, in June 2025, attended by environment ministers or their representatives.

The document provides initial recommendations for how snow leopard range country governments can use avoidance and mitigation techniques to address the impacts of infrastructure development, building on a policy advisory released at the GSLEP Steering Committee Meeting last year. The recommendations reduce risks to local communities, wildlife and ecosystems, and even the infrastructure itself. The document also identifies knowledge gaps that require additional research—for example, understanding what structures and conditions would work for snow leopards and using experimental and field-based studies to design effective and context-specific mitigation measures.

How is infrastructure impacting snow leopard habitat?

Infrastructure serves as the backbone of our societies, delivering basic necessities like the roads we travel on and the electricity that powers our homes and livelihoods. However, linear infrastructure poses an array of threats to snow leopards. Habitat fragmentation, illegal hunting and trade, wildlife-vehicle collisions, and other forms of human-wildlife conflict—along with the introduction of feral dogs, pathogens, and pollutants—are some of the ways in which roads, rail, fencing, and other forms of linear infrastructure cause landscape-level changes that lead to major environmental disturbances. Climate change exacerbates these threats, putting linear infrastructure projects at high ecological and economic risk.

To avoid causing significant problems for biodiversity, particularly wildlife, and harming the communities it is intended to serve, the coming wave of development must be built sustainably and strategically. It must also integrate the values, knowledge, and perspectives of Indigenous peoples and local communities—who are often the people most affected by this development—while being sensitive to sites of cultural importance.

The new guidance is a crucial step in helping policymakers, engineers, and conservationists address the threats to the magnificent snow leopard as the demand for new infrastructure spreads across their habitat. As an umbrella species, snow leopards are an indicator of the health and stability of their ecosystems. Protecting these big cats also protects the region’s biodiversity and natural services—like clean air and water—for local communities and people across the globe.

What’s in the guidance?

The guidance describes initial strategies and interventions at each stage of the infrastructure project lifecycle to implement the mitigation hierarchy—a four-step framework to avoid, manage, and reduce negative environmental impacts and protect and promote biodiversity and ecosystem health. The goal is to establish practices that avoid areas of high snow leopard use and value; mitigate the impact of linear infrastructure where avoidance is not possible or existing structures impede the natural flows of ecosystems; and restore habitats where development has caused disruptions. The recommendations also include maintaining the needs and values of local communities and environmental sustainability at the center of decision-making during infrastructure projects and establishing long-term monitoring to evaluate the effectiveness of the measures.

The document also identifies knowledge gaps that should be addressed in future work. These include mapping all forms of linear infrastructure across snow leopard ranges and establishing stronger baseline data on snow leopard movement and habitat corridors.

By engaging decision-makers and practitioners from all sectors involved in infrastructure development in snow leopard range countries, these measures and future research will not only protect snow leopards and their prey but also support the human communities living in snow leopard ranges and preserve ecosystem services essential to people all over the world.

This story is a collaboration between the International Snow Leopard Trust, WWF, and the Center for Large Landscape Conservation. This article was first published on worldwildlife.org.

_{Top photo: Snow leopard (Unica unica) – © Muhammad Osama / WWF-Pakistan}

The post Designing Infrastructure With Snow Leopards in Mind appeared first on Center for Large Landscape Conservation.

NEWS RELEASE

May 13, 2025

Bozeman, MT — On May 8, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed a bill into law that will help keep drivers and wildlife safe on the state’s roadways. House Bill 855—Establish FWP Wildlife Highway Crossings and Accommodations Account—creates a dedicated fund and authorizes a new state specialty license plate expected to generate up to $160,000 per year. Revenues from sales of the plate will help contribute to the planning, design, and construction of wildlife crossing structures, which have been proven to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions.

The Center for Large Landscape Conservation (CLLC) supported the bill as part of its work to advance solutions that reconnect fragmented wildlife habitat in Montana and globally.

“After strong bipartisan backing in committee and passage by the Montana House and Senate, this legislation marks a significant step toward addressing wildlife-vehicle collisions in Montana,” said CLLC road ecologist Kylie Paul. “We supported this bill because it will help keep our Montana wildlife and drivers safe and we appreciate the hard work of everyone involved in making this bill come to fruition.”

Montana has the second-highest rate of wildlife-vehicle collisions per capita in the nation; in 10 years, drivers in the state hit well over 60,000 large animals. Fifty-four people have died in wildlife-vehicle collisions in the state in 10 years. And these collisions cost Montana more than $200 million annually.  

“It’s dangerous and scary and it’s expensive,” Paul said.

The data in Montana and around the world demonstrates that wildlife crossing structures like underpasses, overpasses, and associated fencing are effective at reducing collisions by 80 to 100 percent and successful at keeping wildlife moving through the landscape. The science of where these crossings are needed in Montana is also increasingly clear, from data collection, mapping, and assessments from CLLC, state agencies and partner groups.

Through the Montanans for Safe Wildlife Passage coalition and the Montana Wildlife and Transportation Partnership, state agencies, organizations, and the public are working hard to decrease wildlife-vehicle collisions and reconnect fragmented habitat. Several highway crossing projects in the state are in various stages of moving ahead or in the wings waiting for further funding for construction.  

In addition to license plate sales, the account created by the signing of this new law has the potential to house funding from sources made possible by other legislative bills.

“This license plate account is an important first step to pull together the necessary resources to advance wildlife crossing structures,” Paul said. “We are eager to see these structures built so they can save lives and help keep Montana wildlife on the move.”

About the Center for Large Landscape Conservation

The Center for Large Landscape Conservation advances ecological connectivity for climate resilience worldwide through science, policy, practice, and collaboration. Largelandscapes.org

CONTACT:

Christine Weinheimer, Communications Manager
Center for Large Landscape Conservation
406-586-8082

Photo: US-93 Overpass, Montana – CLLC/Gabe Oppler

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