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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Preserving Migration Corridors Critical for Western Species, Scientists Say

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Wednesday, December 9, 2020   

HELENA, Mont. -- Researchers say land managers should consider and protect the migration routes that are critical to wildlife in the West. One study shows that migration increases a species survival by 7% for the animals that migrate compared with those that don't.

Andrew Jakes, regional wildlife biologist for the National Wildlife Federation, said Montana is taking these movements into consideration, with the state Fish, Wildlife and Parks' development of a movement and migration strategy.

"It seems fairly holistic," he said. "It seems like a good first step toward working towards conserving these important movements."

Jakes said data will play a valuable role in this strategy. Scientists have accumulated enough data to predict and map migration corridors, which is useful for prioritizing projects, especially ones that benefit multiple species.

Wildlife ecologist Arthur Middleton, an assistant professor at the University of California-Berkeley, said fences are among the big barriers for wildlife. One of his graduate students studied the effect fences have on migration corridors.

"You see lots of failure to cross," he said. "Up to 40% of the time these animals encounter fences, they're failing to cross, and then they're sort of bouncing away or they're tracing back and forth along fences, so they're getting trapped in small pastures."

Jakes said he and other scientists have approached landowners with their research on corridors and fences, and many are willing to work with them. Some tell Jakes it can be costly to repair fencing that's taken down, again and again, by migrating deer and elk.

"So, if there are methods in place that allow for wildlife movement to continue - where fences don't get damaged and they don't have to spend a lot of time fixing them - and at the same time they keep their livestock in the pastures that they're intended to stay in, then I think it works to benefit everyone," Jakes said.

Jakes and Middleton spoke at a Tuesday forum about wildlife migration in the West, sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and The Pew Charitable Trusts. It was the first in a series on migration.

Disclosure: National Wildlife Federation contributes to our fund for reporting on Climate Change/Air Quality, Endangered Species & Wildlife, Energy Policy, Environment, Public Lands/Wilderness, Salmon Recovery, Water. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.


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