Although proven to work, WY high value wildlife crossing projects failed to get funding-
Ambitious Wyo big game underpass plan takes hit. By Jeff Gearino. Casper Star Tribune Southwest Wyoming bureau
It is especially sad to see pronghorn crossing projects at Trapper’s Point near Pinedale denied. This bottleneck is a huge threat to the semi-annual, thousands-of-year-old trek of pronghorn to Jackson Hole and the Tetons from the Red Desert and back.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
This is pretty sad considering that 1000s of acres of public land has been opened to drilling in Wyoming alone, let alone other states. And none of the revenues from these minuscule drilling fees can’t be kicked back to this project which benefits so many (animals and people).
I agree this is sad. This is something that keeps people safe as well as animals.
This is a proven – again and again – strategy and yet?
I have seen such underpasses at work on Interstate 87, the Adirondack Northway, while on my way to trailheads up there.
With this decision, the critics of sending federal funding to rural (red) states will have one less objection. Not sure how the federal stimulus funds get allocated over all the states with some sort of equitable distribution, but it is for certain that wildlife caused human injury on highways, appears not to be a priority.
One would wonder, if WY had made a more modest request – something less than $100M, say a third of that – whether a targeted project might have been more favorably reviewed.