BOISE COUNTY — When you drive into the foothills and mountains, you have to keep a close eye out for wildlife on the roadway. A project on Highway 21 north of Lucky Peak Reservoir has been a huge success in keeping you and the animals a lot safer.
- Highway 21 wildlife crossing seems to be working
- Fences along the highway funnel deer and elk onto the crossing
- Valley fire could force herds to move around and look for food
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
Every year around late fall and early winter, thousands of mule deer and elk come down from the high country, cross Highway 21, and head into the Boise Foothills, causing concern with highway and wildlife agencies. Now the new overpass combined with an older underpass, is helping keep the herds off the highway. Brad Lowe, Regional Habitat Manager for Idaho Fish and Game says the overpass has been in the planning for years.
"Several years ago we put in underpass in and that was an opportunistic project. It's worked because I.T.D. was working on a project anyhow, and it made it into a wildlife pass a little bit. This was actually a hot spot. This is where mule deer had been hit repeatedly for the past few decades, hundreds of animals per year. Creating a safety hazard for motorists," said Lowe.
How successful has this project been from preventing animals from down the hill and crossing Highway 21? Since the crossing was built almost one year ago, there has not been one animal-vehicle collision on this stretch of highway.
The project is funded through a federal grant that provides millions of dollars to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions while maintaining habitat and landscape connectivity to Federal Lands.
Chris Silbernagel with the Army Corps of Engineers says through a collaborative effort they started keeping the water levels lower at Mores Creek to help the herds across during cold winters.
"We work with Fish and Game to try and maintain a winter pool to basically help the animals kick out in case they break through the ice to get move on because they love to cross over the overpass and go across Mores Creek arm," said Silbernagel.
And how will the recent Valley Fire affect the herds movement once they cross over the highway? Lowe explains.
"If things green up here and we get some moisture and it stays warm they'll have a little bit of food to chew on not a lot, so they're still going have to go find some other place to be," answered Lowe.
Fish and Game gave us access to the crossing, but any motorized vehicle is prohibited from entering the area.
