United States Department of Transportation
i
Traffic Thresholds in Deer Road-Crossing Behavior
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2018-05-01
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[PDF-17.92 MB]
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Edition:Final Report
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Abstract:Roads have two major effects on ungulate populations: they can cause direct mortality through wildlife-vehicle collisions, and they can create partial to complete barriers to animal movements, cutting animals off from food and habitat resources they need. Wildlife-vehicle collisions are also dangerous and costly to the traveling public. The most effective way to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions and the barrier effects of roads is to install wildlife crossing structures with game fencing; these measures are 80-100 percent effective. However, they are costly, and managers are challenged to make informed decisions about where to prioritize their installation. In this report, we developed two key pieces of information to help inform these decisions. We used a gap-acceptance approach to determine the duration of gap between consecutive vehicles that enables deer to safely and consistently cross roads. We found that 60 seconds’ gap is necessary to allow deer to safely cross roads 90percentof the time. We used traffic data to relate this gap duration to hourly traffic volume and to assess the relative degree to which different hotspots of deer-vehicle collisions in Wyoming are permeable or impermeable to deer. We also conducted cost-benefit analyses for six different methods of reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions for the WYDOT road network.
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