The US 93 reconstruction project on the Flathead Indian Reservation in northwest Montana represents one of the most extensive wildlife sensitive highway design efforts to occur in the continental United States. The reconstruction will include installations of 42 fish and wildlife crossing structures and approximately 15 mi (24 km) of wildlife exclusion fencing for a total investment of over 9 million dollars. This report documents the success of using a context sensitive approach to collaboratively redesign a rural highway within a multiple use landscape that accommodates the needs and concerns of different institutions, cultures and priorities. Further, this report introduces baseline field data collection methods and results that are being used to evaluate how the wildlife crossing structures and wildlife fencing affect deer and bear vehicle collisions and movements in a multiple use rural landscape. The preconstruction data summarized here, and in combination with complementary post construction data, will address the following goals of the evaluation study: (1) determine what effect US 93 wildlife crossing structures and fencing have on the frequency of animal vehicle collisions and successful animal highway crossings; (2) document the design decision making processes and lessons learned as a case study; and (3) identify best management practices and further research. These issues are addressed via a literature review of important considerations related to locating, designing, and evaluating the effectiveness of wildlife crossings and exclusion fencing; a case study and project history; summary and synthesis of field data collection efforts; overview of other relevant and repeatable field studies; and a discussion about the measures of effectiveness and post-construction data collection recommendations. The ultimate value of the information in this report will be realized when the reconstruction is complete and post construction field data is collected to comparatively assess the effect of the wildlife mitigation on the parameters of interest identified in the goals. Perhaps one of the most important insights gained from the preconstruction research is that, due to the myriad sources of unquantifiable variation in the environment, many years of monitoring are necessary to make valid inferences. Given the paucity of long term, before after field studies assessing the effects of wildlife exclusion fencing and crossing structures on wildlife and driver safety, the US 93 wildlife mitigation evaluation, when completed, will provide useful results, lessons learned, and best management practices to guide other wildlife mitigation efforts in the future.

Wildlife animals crossing road surface often cause wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) and is a major concern of highway safety in rural and suburban areas. WVCs are dangerous for the motorists and the wildlife involved and cause millions of dollars in infrastructure damage. In this report, the Center for Advanced Transportation Education and Research (CATER) at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) collected data of wildlife using the six crossing structures along west I80 in the Pequop Mountains and two wild horses crossing underpasses along the USA Parkway in the migratory periods of 2018 fall and 2019 spring. The CATER team also obtained wildlife-crossing pictures at the five crossing structures collected by the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) Environmental service in 2018 spring. A total of 140,009 effective pictures related to 3,686 wildlife and human records were captured in 2018 spring (3/21/2018 – 5/1/2018), 2018 fall (9/14/2018 – 12/31/2018), and 2019 spring (1/01/2019 – 5/13/19). Pictures were processed by renaming and grouping picture files based on event time. Wildlife approaching/crossing records were extracted by reviewing the recorded pictures, and the extracted records were stored into an Excel database. The major conclusions are: 1) Deer were the major wildlife species crossing the structures in the Pequop Mountains. 2) There were many deer using the west wildlife underpass and the west wildlife overpass. 3) Wild horses were the major wildlife species crossing the structures in the USA Parkway area. 4) There were much more wild horses approached the south wildlife underpass than the north wildlife underpass. Generally, the same groups crossed the structures twice every day, and there are more horse captured during 2018 fall period than 2019 spring period.

Terrestrial Mammal Conservation provides a thorough summary of the available scientific evidence of what is known, or not known, about the effectiveness of all of the conservation actions for wild terrestrial mammals across the world (excluding bats and primates, which are covered in separate synopses). Actions are organized into categories based on the International Union for Conservation of Nature classifications of direct threats and conservation actions. Over the course of fifteen chapters, the authors consider interventions as wide ranging as creating uncultivated margins around fields, prescribed burning, setting hunting quotas and removing non-native mammals. This book is written in an accessible style and is designed to be an invaluable resource for anyone concerned with the practical conservation of terrestrial mammals. The authors consulted an international group of terrestrial mammal experts and conservationists to produce this synopsis. Funding was provided by the MAVA Foundation, Arcadia and National Geographic Big Cats Initiative. Terrestrial Mammal Conservation is the seventeenth publication in the Conservation Evidence Series, linked to the online resource www.ConservationEvidence.com. Conservation Evidence Synopses are designed to promote a more evidence-based approach to biodiversity conservation. Others in the series include Bat Conservation, Primate Conservation, Bird Conservation and Forest Conservation and more are in preparation. Expert assessment of the evidence summarised within synopses is provided online and within the annual publication What Works in Conservation.