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Here, thanks everybody for the comment on this beautiful Friday afternoon.

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My name is Adam Palmer, environmental policy planner here at Eagle County.

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And it's really our pleasure here at the county to have Julia Kinschen and Jim Dawes with the Eagle Valley Land Trust sort of introducing

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her, this afternoon, looking at how we plan for and look at solutions to land use.

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and wildlife migration patterns in Eagle County.

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So a lot of great works have been done

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and we're all looking forward to learning more about that

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and that has been a fine some next steps this afternoon.

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So with that, I'll hand it off to Jim

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and I'll pass around this signage sheet for everybody.

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Thank you, Adam.

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So I'm going to introduce you to the Eagle Valley

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and the interest in wanting to give a little bit of history

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about how we've got here and how to actually

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to help inform discussion on land use here, but before any of us were here, this was all, we had

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our mountains and our valleys and the rivers running through the valleys in the 1872s,

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the homestead act allowed people to come and claim their claim land. So they claim the river

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bottoms along the best places to live, and that hit us created a swath of private land

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through our outer county along the river bottoms. So you have these beautiful river bottoms

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and mountains on the other side, and animals moving through these river bottoms as part of

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their migration in places for shelter.

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And with the Homestead Act, there are a lot of

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these all the land was ranching land for many, many decades, and then along came roads, major

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highways, through our valleys, development, and you started getting these constraints on animals

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being able to move through and that really created the idea of land conservation and just a little

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bit on Eagle Valley land trust. We worked with willing property owners who want to preserve

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their property. The way we work in case you're not clear and a lot of people are in it. Is a

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willing property owner who wants to conserve land would enter into would promise not to develop their land.

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And that promises in the form of a contract, we call it conservation easement.

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And somebody has a hold the contract along with them to make sure that they never

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never develop their property. And we are the third party, the other side of the contract.

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So the contracts with us, and we are the organization that makes sure that they hold

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that promise and perpetuity. A lot of people don't quite understand that that's our role.

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We work with the county, sometimes the landowners, the county. So we end up having

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our relationship, a contractual relationship, via these conservation easements,

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with the county and so you've seen a bunch of properties that actually have

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recreation on them for the public, which is another great way that we can serve

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land forever but allow recreation.

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But so we hold this promise for the benefit of the public.

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The reason landowners might be interested in doing that is because by working with us,

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we are basically licensed for the lack of a better word.

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landowners have the ability in access, they gain eligibility for funding to compensate them

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for doing the conservation.

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So, today's conversation will help us inform, as it helped us be informed as a community

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about the priorities we want to place on conservation through our values to help this connectivity,

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what's left of it, to be preserved.

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And we're very lucky today to have to really

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hinge with Hugo Resolutions.

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She has a master's in ecology from Duke.

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She has worked with Southern Rockies ecosystem

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Project, which many of you may be familiar with.

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She has worked at the Nature Conservancy with her

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Edgar Currant, Eco Resolution.

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She's worked on a really cool project.

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A lot for Pilotten for Colorado Department of Transportation,

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such as retrofitting existing bridges for wildlife.

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wildlife crossing design guidance for the Ministry of Natural Resources

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and Ontario. You may be familiar with the four year citizen science effort on

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veil paths a few years back where there were citizens helping photograph wildlife

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on veil paths to inform where a wildlife crossing may occur and she's also worked

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on the highway nine project which is if you don't know about it's really cool

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between silver thorn and crumbling, they're going to be putting in 9, 7 over passes or under passes.

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So, it's like a bridge going over the road, but the bridge is tired with grass. And it's pretty amazing. So, the study that Julia will be talking about the i70-glogical study is a study of wildlife connectivity problems in a long i70.

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I identified priorities, and I shall talk about some preliminary recommendations to improve

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connectivity.

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I also want to thank Adam for setting this up, and she'll take it away.

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Well, thanks.

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It's great to be here.

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And this is my favorite topics that I've accepted to be able to share this with you.

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I guess I'm very excited that equal county and stakeholders like Eagle Valley Land Trust are coming together and really interested in having these conversations about how to integrate land use planning and management in the county with some of these opportunities to improve connections across interstate 70, which I have been really the biggest and most continuous barrier to wildlife movement in the Southern Rockies.

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So these kinds of conversations I think are really essential and happy to share what I know

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about that connectivity for wildlife with you.

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So I'm reading this book right now, so it's a little tangent, but it's really, I think

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it's really fascinating book, it's called The Cation Land, and it's looking at the Colorado

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mountain towns and how they transition from these places that were these really remote outposts

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to places that are this tourist-based economy, which is really centered around access and access

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into these mountain towns is what has really shaped Ego County into into what it is today, and I

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suddenly of course it's had a major role in shaping this landscape. And this picture here is a

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So the bottom of the picture is actually towards the top of the pass, and the top of the picture is heading towards Vail.

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And you can see here a little bit how it is really this roadway in this pretty natural landscape.

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And it started out with, you know, originally with Highway 6, was the first road to this area.

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And then things like the black or creek were damped for the black lakes in order to provide

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fishing access and bring tourism in fishermen and things like that to increase tourism.

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And then eventually it became I-70, which is a major interstate in Colorado.

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And we even have a bike path among it.

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And so you can see kind of the subtle and not-so subtle changes that this access in this road has

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brought to our landscapes.

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And as Jim mentioned, when the landscapes on fragmented,

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we have this continuous forest and wildlife

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can pretty much roam where they want to.

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Their movements are dictated by things like terrain

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and habitat, and that all changes when you put a road

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through the landscape.

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The wildlife movements become constraints

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and their movement patterns can shift.

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And I think that's something certainly

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that we've seen along Isevity, particularly in these areas where there's been a lot of

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development or areas where there's a lot of human activity and access something like the

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Veil Pest when a recreation area is certainly one example of that.

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So, when a animal does approach a road, there's a couple of things that can happen.

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They'll attempt to cross, perhaps, or a lot of those animals are actually repelled from

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the roadway.

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It could be because a truck come by at that moment and they get spooked and they say,

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no, not even, not even going to try that right now.

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Some of those animals who attempt to cross the road will be killed on that road.

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And the other animals, they will be able to successfully cross the road, at least this time

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this road and I think that provides them access to things like food and water and potential

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meats that they wouldn't be able to get to otherwise.

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So roads clearly have a lot of impact on our wildlife populations in the United States.

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We have a lot of roads, not just in the United States, but in the US we have some 4 million

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miles or roads, and there's over 243 million registered vehicles on those roads.

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In Colorado alone, we have 8,500 miles of C-DOT administered highways, we also have

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Bye-bye.

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Private municipal roads, county roads. And we have some 20,000 miles of national forest roads. We also have the LN Park Service. There's a lot of roads. And if you're an animal trying to traverse a landscape, you're going to be facing a lot of these on your journey.

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As a result, we see animal vehicle collisions. That's a really visible consequence of interactions between roads and wildlife.

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There are 1.5 million reported collisions each year in the United States more or less and those are just ones that are reported.

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So clearly there's a number that go completely unreported and it's been estimated that there's a million vertebrates per day that are killed in this country.

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So that's quite a significant impact.

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And in Canada, it was identified as the fourth leading

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cause, earth deaths.

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And there's also a huge human component,

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because there's human fatalities that are associated

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with these animal vehicle collisions, as well as injuries,

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property damage, and so forth.

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So it's a large cost of wildlife human and economic costs

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that's associated with these kinds of collisions.

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This is something I like to talk about as track volume.

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And I think it's really interesting in the context of I-70.

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Because traffic volume is, it's really easy to dismiss a section of roadway that has really

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load top traffic volumes.

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You can say, oh, well, nothing's getting hit.

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It's not a problem, right?

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Well, it turns out that's not really the case.

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Not certainly not from a wildlife perspective.

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And so what you see here is on this graph.

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The solid line here are the number or the, let's make sure I get the successful crossings.

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So what we see as traffic volume increases along the excess, the number of successful crossings

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actual decreases and the number of more tallities as traffic volume increases, those more tallities go up.

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So that's pretty intuitive.

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You're going to, more animals are going to die on the road

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when there's more cards on the road.

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But that's only two a certain point,

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because once traffic volume reaches a certain point,

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there's more tallities actually decrease again.

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And that's because fewer animals are actually

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even attempting to cross the road at that point.

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And the number of animals repelled from the road,

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that number is going up.

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So traffic volume increases.

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Because you might see lower mortalities because fewer animals are even trying to cross that

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road.

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So, if you're looking at analytical collision data, you can't just assume, oh, well, not

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a problem for wildlife.

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They don't even want to cross here.

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It could be they're just not even trying that it's just so much of a barrier that they're

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not even trying to cross those roads.

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And certainly that's something we see on I-70,

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average annual daily traffic volume, that's the AADT that's just your average traffic volume that you see on a roadway segment.

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And what we found is that in between the range of 3,000 to 5,000 vehicles per day is where we see the greatest number of animals being hit.

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So that means more animals are trying to cross, but they're not crossing successfully.

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And at 10,000 vehicles per day, we see that that roadway becomes a near complete barrier

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for most species of wildlife.

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To put that in the context of I-70 around .0, there's about 13,000 vehicles per day.

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at Vale, or at Eagle, it's around 24,000, at Bale that goes up to 34,000, and at Vale Pass,

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it's around 19,000. So in I-70 in Eagle County, it's in most places double if not more that

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threshold of 10,000 vehicles per day. So animals are by and large, either not even attempting to

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or having a really hard time crossing.

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And we see that reflected when we look

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at the animal vehicle collision data.

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When we see those numbers, in a lot of places,

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the numbers aren't as high as they might be

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on some of these other roads, like Highway 9.

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And so it's something to keep in mind

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that the wildlife impact is still really large,

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or even larger, because of the traffic volume

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and not just the roadway footprint itself.

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And as with most things, the impacts are species.

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Specific, different animals have different levels of tolerance and it's been estimated that for links, the threshold where that road becomes of barrier is around 4,000 vehicles per day for something like a turtle that's as low as 400 vehicles per day. So, it does vary, it does vary for sure, but these ranges that I was mentioning before are particularly thresholds that we try to look at.

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If you guys have any questions at any point, feel free to shout them out.

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Okay, so I did want to give a little bit of history, but without getting too far deep into

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I-70 and started the planning processes that have been going on there for the last

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over decade.

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And it's been a long journey, and anybody who's driven that highway, which is all of us,

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knows that there is a lot of congestion issues, there is a lot of traffic problems that need

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to be addressed.

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So this has been recognized for a while in the late 1900s, they began to see that and federal

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highways began what's called a draft programmatic impact statements, so that's looking at

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the various alternatives, what the impacts of each of those are in the associated costs.

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That process, as some of you may recall, became rather controversial and it was restarted

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if you will around 2006 with a new administration and they went back and looked at all the

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and original alternatives and said, okay, well let's take another look at this.

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Let's do more to engage the communities and look at some of the community values so that

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we're not, you know, alienating everybody in their interests and that we make sure that we

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include this in our decision-making processes.

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So they started what's called the collaborative effort

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and the context-sensitive solutions process.

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And ultimately, we're able to come up with a final recommendation

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and signed a record of decision in 2011.

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So if we look at the bottom half of this timeline,

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the pieces that are interesting from a wildlife connectivity standpoint

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are that at the beginning of the PES process, an interagency committee was born, and that was called

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the Alive Committee, and Bill was a part of that, and many other people. And that process that's,

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this was a group of people who were focused exclusively on this issue of how to deal with I70

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as a barrier to wildlife movement and how to address that. And so that group identified these

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connectivity zones, which are called officially linkage interference zones, or

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Liz's for short, and they identified these zones on the map and said, okay, these are

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the areas that we think are the most important for wildlife movement. And in 2006, there was an

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interagency MOU, which was drafted. There were various delays and complications, and it wasn't until

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2008 that MOU was actually signed, and it was at that time that our group received funding

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from federal highways and from see that to conduct this ISM and ecological study. So this

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timing was actually pretty great because we were doing this study at the same time that the PIS was

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being finished up and conducted and that whole collaborative effort. So we were able to take all the

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information that we produced and all the data that we created and integrate that into this and

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have that be a part of CDOT's kind of their decision-making framework and when they go through

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and look at projects. So our project and this is what I'll talk about more, we were able to look

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at those connectivity zones that were originally identified and create a more robust, a more transparent

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process, something that we could have more confidence in the results so that we move forward

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into implementation, you know, we feel like we're doing the best mitigation in the best place.

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So that was one of the objectives of our projects.

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And you'll see here, there between 2011, there's a little gap there.

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I think I have something to go there because that's what we're missing.

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So there's recorded decision and got signed.

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We said, finally, after all these years, we know what we want to do is a capacity solution to improve

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by 70, but there was no money to implement it.

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So what do you do?

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Well, you kind of weighed a little bit.

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You started to try to figure out

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what your other options are.

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There were, you know, there have been some projects

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like the Twin Tunnels that Idaho Springs,

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the Eastbound War, now the Westbound War

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just got completed.

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So these individual projects,

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but there was no funding to do kind of the whole solution

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of fixing, if you will.

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And...

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Capacity issues on I-70. In 2013, see that convened what's called this traffic and revenue study, and that was really only looking at the segment from silver thorn to golden, because that's where the biggest traffic issues are. And, you know, trying to figure out, okay, well, what if we do this through private funding and look at tolling as an option? Is there a way that we can do tolling to be able to pay for these capacity improvements?

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And after the first round of analysis in that process, we found out that it couldn't pay for itself.

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So that study got aborted this summer and we're kind of back to where we were.

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We're still trying to figure out how are we going to pay for this.

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We still don't know the answer to those questions.

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But it's clear that a lot of the work that we want to do that we're interested in improving habitat connectivity for wildlife.

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we can't, if we, if we're serious about that, we can't just sit around and wait for something

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to happen with Cida, or a federal highway, because it could be a really, really long time.

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Cool, so let's talk about the I7E Ecological Study. There are three main components to the study.

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The first was this analysis of all the wildlife habitat, data, where there's movement corridors

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and animal vehicle collisions and to bring all this information together to identify

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where there's priority areas for wildlife movement over I-70.

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The second part of it was we did a really comprehensive inventory of all the existing bridges

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and culverts on I-70 under I-70.

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So for about 130 miles we went to every single one of those and just to get a sense of what's

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there right now and is there some potential functionality for wildlife and then we were able to look at that

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question a little more deeply by doing some strategic camera monitoring at some of these bridge

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and covert locations to see okay well these aren't necessarily built for wildlife passage

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but are some of these that that function for wildlife maybe they're using maybe they're not

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so we put up cameras at a lot of these locations pretty much all the photos that you see of animals on

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from our cameras. So there are places that, you know, that what I'm

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like for using these bridges and culverts, even in some unexpected places.

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So it's, it's need to be able to get us, you know,

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begin to get a sense of, you know, what is the actual permeability of the

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inner state for wildlife and where are there really just huge barriers

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that aren't being overcome? So the, the results of this study were these

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link between your parents and that I reference. So this kind of

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revised analysis of priorities.

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And I did want to point out that there

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that we looked at both terrestrial connectivity

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and aquatic connectivity issues.

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So a lot of the focus is on the terrestrial connectivity side,

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but we did also look at road stream crossings.

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And where there's either important areas for fish passage

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where we might want to look at improving road stream crossings

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that are more suitable for fish passage versus those areas

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where maybe we want to maintain the extreme barriers because we want to protect the pure

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population of native trout upstream. So that's another component of the study that

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not really going to talk much about, but it is part of the report. So that's available as well.

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And then in all of these priority areas, we identified preliminary recommendations for how to mitigate.

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Okay, where are the areas where we can potentially retrofit some of the existing infrastructure

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And where do we need to invest in new crossings in order to create a more permeable landscape?

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So this is your map at our gym.

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The one that is kind of hard to read, especially when you're looking at all of Eagle Counties.

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So what I'm going to ask you is to not really try to focus in too much on the detail,

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but just kind of get a sense of the colors and the patterns up there.

283
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What you're looking at are for the analysis for identifying these priorities zones.

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We split up the entire interstate into 10th of a mile segments.

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And that was the scale that we conducted our analysis.

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And we looked at all the different layers of information.

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So any of the target species habitat layers, wildlife movement, animal vehicle collisions.

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And so we were able to compile those and create sort of a wildlife values layer

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that is sort of the basis for identifying these important priority areas.

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And it's not to say that some areas have no value for wildlife,

291
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but there are some that are more valuable for multiple species of wildlife.

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And if we can invest in those areas, we probably can get the biggest bang for our buck.

293
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So that's really what we were trying to draw out through this analysis.

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And what you see here then is that some of these areas in red and the oranges and yellows kind of came out as the most high-priority areas, and the greens and the low and the light greens, those are lower priority.

295
00:25:15,140 --> 00:25:24,180
When you look at this kind of multi-species approach across the entire corridor from Golden all the way to London, can you? So, yes.

296
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:30,660
Are they paradise because there's a variety or a great number of animals or a paradise

297
00:25:30,660 --> 00:25:36,240
because it's a really hard place to cross in there or a bunch of animals?

298
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:43,020
We didn't really look at the question of, is it a hard place to cross?

299
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It was more like, is it does it have value as a crossing area?

300
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So it's not whether they necessarily could cross in that area.

301
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It's more of whether it has the different levels of value.

302
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:57,280
So for a single species, there could be multiple data layers.

303
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We were looking at, and some of those data layers were more important than others.

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So for example,

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an identified links corridor was going to rank pretty high in our analysis versus something that was say, you know, I don't know, summer range for a species.

306
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So it just it kind of depended and it varied and we had a lot of expert review and input into the process so that it wasn't just two people sitting in the computer and saying hey, what do you think is important but you know that we tried to

307
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Really give a good relative index and then and then check ourselves and refine it accordingly. So there are some areas. There's one notable area that

308
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Right over here, so there's an a zone here that was identified as a priority that's

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an intern interchange and then over here is East Bale that was also identified as a

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priority area.

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And between there, there's a lot of red, and that's not an identified priority area.

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Because when we applied our decision rules, to actually say, okay, what constitutes a

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priority zone, some things did fall out and most notably is the area around Bale and it

314
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has to do because of the amount of development in that area.

315
00:27:11,620 --> 00:27:16,800
And when we're talking about constructing multi-million dollar structures for wildlife,

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are you going to put them in an area where there's hotels and a lot of human activity,

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00:27:20,540 --> 00:27:23,940
are you going to try to put them in an area where the lands on either side

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have some more compatible use for wildlife movement, basically.

319
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So that area did fall out from the priority, even though it's,

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at some point it certainly had some value for wildlife movement.

321
00:27:41,340 --> 00:27:47,680
So, this map is a little easier to see because it's zoomed in from eagle to bell pass.

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And the yellow areas are those priority areas that we identified in our analysis.

323
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So, these are the link to interference zones.

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The purple areas beneath them are actually the areas that were identified by the experts that came together in the live committee in the 2004 analysis.

325
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So what we can see here is actually that the experts did a pretty good job of identifying

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some of these areas because there's a lot of overlap here.

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And the cream of the crop really comes out in both of these analyses.

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I think what our analysis did to a large part is kind of tighten it up and provide a more

329
00:28:27,260 --> 00:28:32,340
systematic way of looking at this, something that could lend a little bit,

330
00:28:32,340 --> 00:28:38,100
you know, just greater detail and confidence to it and refining these areas. But as again,

331
00:28:38,220 --> 00:28:42,500
there's a ton of overlap here. So it's kind of interesting to see that as well.

332
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Yeah.

333
00:28:45,620 --> 00:28:46,920
I'm just like, it looks like there's

334
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a smell.

335
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:55,580
I'm sorry, it looks like there's a yellow.

336
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:58,220
It's like a break of the word Edward, so it's a little

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box.

338
00:29:02,100 --> 00:29:08,780
That yellow dot is for the ton of Edwards. So this one is, oh yeah, that's the town. That's the

339
00:29:08,780 --> 00:29:12,140
I guess that's the town of min turn, but it's just not labeled.

340
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:18,760
So actually, it's the actual box outlines areas that are the connectivity zones.

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And this next slide actually, kind of details for the entire county, what each of the

342
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:30,540
eight connectivity zones are, and, you know, we have a bunch of maps and things for each

343
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of these.

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But in general, there are eight zones that were identified in Eagle County, and for each

345
00:29:36,660 --> 00:29:42,580
these because of all the inventory data that we've collected for all the existing structures.

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00:29:42,980 --> 00:29:47,600
We are able to go and look and say, OK, well, are there some places where we could retrofit

347
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:52,080
this existing bridge or culver and make it more functional for wildlife passage?

348
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:58,780
And you can see here that a lot of these, most of them, have retrofit potential somewhere in

349
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that zone where there's...

350
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:07,700
So, that's kind of cool because that's sort of more low hanging fruit. And in the report, C.

351
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:15,480
They're terminology is early enhancements, opportunities. So that's an I for for retrofit, whatever.

352
00:30:16,900 --> 00:30:20,800
And then you also see we were able to look at, okay, well, where are their gaps?

353
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Where are their places that we need to, we're going to have to invest in a new dedicated wildlife crossing if we want to actually provide connectivity

354
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in the zone, and you can see that most pretty much all have some new structure requirements as

355
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:41,020
well. And then a lot of times we would like to use guide-fensing and things to bring animals

356
00:30:41,020 --> 00:30:46,780
to a structure and kind of help them learn where it is. So that's kind of the summary results

357
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:48,940
from this study.

358
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:57,780
So I did want to mention this about target species. These are sort of combined

359
00:30:57,780 --> 00:31:03,160
across all the connectivity zones and equal counting some of the target species that we were

360
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:07,760
looking at. So common primary target species include things like Canada,

361
00:31:07,860 --> 00:31:14,560
links, elk, and meal deer, not surprisingly. And some of the secondary target species that we

362
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:21,500
looked at are mountain lion, moose, sporeal, toad, coyote, black bear, and then a number of

363
00:31:21,500 --> 00:31:26,160
medium and small fauna, things like boxes and badgers and weasels and things like that.

364
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:34,460
So, not all of these are present in every one of these priorities zones, but this is just to give you an idea of some of the things we looked at at the studies.

365
00:31:35,340 --> 00:31:53,940
So, this is really important, not just for the purposes of identifying these priority areas, but when we get to home to the business of actually designing mitigation, that's kind of function for these wildlife, we have to think at a species specific, species specific perspective, because not everything works for every species.

366
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So, for example, there's some species that have really specific requirements when it comes

367
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to a crossing structure, and they won't use just anything.

368
00:32:02,900 --> 00:32:06,860
It has to be the right conditions if they're going to go and pass through that structure.

369
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Whereas other species, they'll cross through anything if they fit in it, they'll go.

370
00:32:12,780 --> 00:32:17,280
And so, understanding those differences among the different species is really important

371
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:22,800
when you get to down to the site specific level of actually what does a mitigation in this area

372
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:26,760
need to look like so that it's functional for these target species that are present here.

373
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So I think that's an important point.

374
00:32:33,460 --> 00:32:36,240
So I just, I wanted to run through a couple of examples

375
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:42,920
of some of the priorities zones. We're not going to go through all of them, but we'll look at a

376
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:49,840
couple of them just so that you can get a sense of them. And the background is one of the comfort.

377
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:54,760
So the background that you're looking at here is actually looking at animal vehicle collision

378
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:58,980
data to just to give you an idea of where there's actual collision hotspots.

379
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:03,780
So this isn't the prioritization layer that includes kind of all the wildlife data.

380
00:33:03,860 --> 00:33:07,120
This is simply the collision data in the background.

381
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:10,920
The zone we're looking at is this main one here.

382
00:33:10,940 --> 00:33:13,500
This is just west of the wool cut interchange.

383
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:18,940
And it's primarily BLM lands in this area.

384
00:33:18,940 --> 00:33:30,260
And although there's some private, along the eastern side, and then as you can see there's this area here that where there's kind of a, there's been a lot of reported animal vehicle collisions.

385
00:33:31,540 --> 00:33:40,380
Here's some of the recommendations that we, we developed for this particular priorities zone and you'll see that so over here in this stretch.

386
00:33:40,380 --> 00:33:50,420
There wasn't really anything that was functional for wildlife, so we said, okay, well, this is an area where we need to think about installing a new crossing structure.

387
00:33:51,020 --> 00:33:58,600
But then in some of these other areas, there are a couple of existing bridges that are under the interstate.

388
00:33:58,900 --> 00:34:05,640
And with some improvements, these could be enhanced so that they're more functional for wildlife passage. So those are retrofit opportunities.

389
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:09,720
and wouldn't take as much effort to make them functional for wildlife.

390
00:34:09,980 --> 00:34:12,340
And especially because there is a lot of wildlife

391
00:34:12,340 --> 00:34:13,480
fencing in this segment.

392
00:34:14,220 --> 00:34:16,460
So time making sure everything is tied into that fencing.

393
00:34:16,860 --> 00:34:20,540
This one pipe kind of drives me crazy because the wildlife fence

394
00:34:20,540 --> 00:34:21,780
actually goes in front of the pipe.

395
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:24,680
So anything that comes in from over here and tries to exit

396
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,940
will get bounce back onto the roadway

397
00:34:27,940 --> 00:34:30,680
because the fence is just in front of the culver.

398
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:32,020
And we could just move that.

399
00:34:32,340 --> 00:34:33,580
And it wouldn't work for an elk,

400
00:34:33,580 --> 00:34:44,180
but it would work for a lot of smaller animals and so you know there's sometimes there's really simple things but you know the folks who put at the fence they were not thinking about that they were thinking well it's just a drainage pipe no big deal so

401
00:34:45,420 --> 00:34:52,240
you know in that context maybe it's not as important but for wildlife it um it could be made functional for passage

402
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:54,900
so that's just one example

403
00:34:56,100 --> 00:34:57,180
let's move on

404
00:34:58,760 --> 00:34:59,800
this is

405
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,260
So, this is at the mid-term interchange.

406
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:29,700
This is also, there's a lot of forest service land in this area. Although, again, as you get closer to the veil over on the eastern end, there's a little bit more of a private land that orange-colored represents the ABCs. So, there are higher, sorry, that's animal vehicle collisions. In that segment, there are more collisions over towards the eastern end. And again, here's some of the recommendations that we devise.

407
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:34,500
Again, there's several retrofit opportunities.

408
00:35:36,300 --> 00:35:40,540
And notably, there's this box culvert here.

409
00:35:41,720 --> 00:35:43,740
And that culvert, interestingly,

410
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:48,260
was actually installed with some consideration for wildlife.

411
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:53,160
And I would probably say it's a little,

412
00:35:53,340 --> 00:35:55,320
it's probably too small for what we really

413
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:58,620
ideally like to have there, but we had cameras there for years.

414
00:35:58,620 --> 00:36:01,920
And we saw a number of animals, different kinds of animals.

415
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:05,160
We saw deer, moose, or not, I'm sorry.

416
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:08,520
We saw deer, we saw elk, we saw black bear, mountain lions,

417
00:36:08,980 --> 00:36:10,480
and smaller animals using that.

418
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:15,020
So in terms of individual animals that have a bit

419
00:36:15,020 --> 00:36:16,940
situated to it and are willing to pass through it,

420
00:36:16,940 --> 00:36:18,180
it's working really well.

421
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:20,880
If we wanted to pass larger groups of animals,

422
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:25,820
we wouldn't recommend installing a larger bridge at that location.

423
00:36:25,820 --> 00:36:35,960
But it's a really great opportunity and certainly where I would focus my efforts in that particular zone to improve connectivity because it's a really nice connection.

424
00:36:37,420 --> 00:36:43,160
So, that's again, I'm not going to go into detail on all of these, but actually I will say one more thing.

425
00:36:43,900 --> 00:36:53,220
So, in a couple of these bridge structures, and this was true on the last zone as well, that you have these bridges, but there's just, there's no pathway for wildlife.

426
00:36:53,220 --> 00:36:55,380
There's no way for them to get through a lot of times

427
00:36:55,380 --> 00:36:58,160
what we see is rip wrap coming down on the slopes,

428
00:36:58,220 --> 00:36:59,740
all the way down to the river.

429
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:03,780
And there's not really a way for an animal that has long skinny

430
00:37:03,780 --> 00:37:07,180
legs with hooves to get through that rip wrap.

431
00:37:07,380 --> 00:37:09,660
And so even though you have a bridge structure,

432
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:12,200
it's not very functional for some of the wildlife

433
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:14,020
that might otherwise be able to use it.

434
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:15,940
So that's why we recommend retrofits

435
00:37:15,940 --> 00:37:18,420
at several of these location and that's something

436
00:37:18,420 --> 00:37:21,300
that we see in a lot of places where there's bridges.

437
00:37:21,780 --> 00:37:21,860
Yes.

438
00:37:21,860 --> 00:37:25,440
Julie, is there a lot of data out there that shows that just by adding this little thing,

439
00:37:25,720 --> 00:37:28,060
and it will actually do use it?

440
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:34,920
Um, no, there's not a lot of data on that, there's some data on that and there's increasing

441
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:43,920
amounts of data on that, but the whole idea of retrofitting structures is newer and it hasn't

442
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:48,320
been done in a lot of places yet and so there's very little monitoring data accordingly.

443
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:56,300
However, what we do know are just in general are some of the design features that work better

444
00:37:56,300 --> 00:37:57,620
for different types of wildlife.

445
00:37:58,100 --> 00:38:03,400
So by applying that knowledge base to these retrofit opportunities, we can kind of figure that out

446
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:03,920
a little bit.

447
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:06,380
But yeah, we're still learning a lot of this, for sure.

448
00:38:06,660 --> 00:38:10,520
Is it pretty promising though that things you have for that is surprisingly effective?

449
00:38:10,820 --> 00:38:15,260
Something like this, creating a pathway is really basic and yes, absolutely.

450
00:38:15,260 --> 00:38:27,280
I think that's kind of one of the very simple design elements that you would want to include in any sort of wildlife crossing structure and so yeah, that's that's a pretty

451
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:39,540
A lot of animals are going to need something that has a dry, level pathway that with a natural substrate is sort of a preferred element. Yeah

452
00:38:39,540 --> 00:38:44,980
Julia, actually, I'm the mud springs on your past, was what it was specifically for deer migration.

453
00:38:45,780 --> 00:38:45,920
Yeah.

454
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:46,660
And it was thick.

455
00:38:46,780 --> 00:38:48,760
That location was picked as that's where they went.

456
00:38:49,460 --> 00:38:50,220
Up that drainage.

457
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:56,380
We did a four-year study before and after we were able to show that it worked.

458
00:38:57,300 --> 00:38:59,080
But we lost 40 percent of the deer.

459
00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:04,280
The fence scene was put into guide in there, but the deer would just stand at the fence scene.

460
00:39:09,260 --> 00:39:09,580
Exactly.

461
00:39:09,580 --> 00:39:13,640
And that's exactly it, that location is spot on.

462
00:39:14,380 --> 00:39:18,020
It's a really fabulous location, but it's the size of the structure

463
00:39:18,620 --> 00:39:22,520
that I think prevents anything other than small individuals or small groups

464
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:24,220
from actually really using it.

465
00:39:24,220 --> 00:39:25,460
It was the first one down in California.

466
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:27,800
Yeah, yeah. Excellent.

467
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:29,140
It was the first one down in California, right?

468
00:39:29,380 --> 00:39:29,680
No.

469
00:39:30,780 --> 00:39:31,340
Yeah,

470
00:39:35,020 --> 00:39:37,940
there was, not just here in I-70,

471
00:39:37,940 --> 00:39:40,840
and a few other locations in Colorado.

472
00:39:41,060 --> 00:39:44,300
There was some work on this in the 70s,

473
00:39:46,060 --> 00:39:47,820
and that was kind of the beginning of this work

474
00:39:47,820 --> 00:39:50,680
in Colorado, and then it sort of went by the wayside for a while,

475
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:55,820
and but it was neat to see that start-up kind of a while back,

476
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:56,800
sort of a pioneer.

477
00:39:58,740 --> 00:39:59,940
Here's Westvale, Pa.

478
00:40:02,020 --> 00:40:14,760
This priority zone is surrounded by national forest lands. So that's a really good starting point because we already have some public lands on both sides of the interstate.

479
00:40:15,060 --> 00:40:19,920
And it's certainly been an important movement area for wildlife for a long time.

480
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:22,400
Unfortunately, we do have a couple of documented links,

481
00:40:22,900 --> 00:40:24,380
road kills in this area.

482
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:27,340
One that happened within this priority zone,

483
00:40:27,580 --> 00:40:30,460
itself, and one that just happened just beyond the north edge,

484
00:40:30,500 --> 00:40:32,860
what we identified as a priority zone.

485
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:36,660
So with links, road kills, it's kind of special type of road

486
00:40:36,660 --> 00:40:39,500
kill, because there's not that many links in Colorado.

487
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:43,520
And so every animal that dies on the road is pretty notable.

488
00:40:44,060 --> 00:40:47,300
And having two that dies on one area is especially

489
00:40:47,300 --> 00:40:48,140
I know to build.

490
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:53,720
And, unfortunately, one of the leading known cause of death,

491
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:58,200
I'm emphasizing known for links in Colorado, is Roke Hill.

492
00:40:59,720 --> 00:41:01,620
The only thing bigger is unknown.

493
00:41:02,580 --> 00:41:05,280
So, I mean, that's what we have to work with right now.

494
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:10,940
And, so if we take a look at this, we actually have some really cool opportunity to say,

495
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:14,380
there's a lot of really great stuff going on here because these bridges,

496
00:41:14,380 --> 00:41:17,600
is there's four of these span bridges right here.

497
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:21,120
I have, it should have a multiple mile post, not just that one.

498
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:24,540
That all are, any folder of an over them, you see them,

499
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:28,440
that all these really high, long, open span bridges,

500
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:31,660
and you have trees and vegetation and streams

501
00:41:31,660 --> 00:41:32,640
that go through underneath.

502
00:41:32,740 --> 00:41:36,480
So you have essentially an intact ecosystem beneath these bridges

503
00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:38,380
and for an animal passing through underneath,

504
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:41,980
they're fairly well isolated from the impacts

505
00:41:41,980 --> 00:41:43,720
of the effects of traffic noise

506
00:41:43,720 --> 00:41:49,760
and things like that, so they can pass through those at areas pretty naturally and use them

507
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:51,400
and they do, which is great.

508
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:58,720
And so we already have in this whole segment of this particular priority area, very functional

509
00:41:58,720 --> 00:42:02,860
wildlife crossings, so that's great, you know, we don't have to do a lot.

510
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:07,180
We could consider adding a little bit of guide fencing in some areas, just to encourage

511
00:42:07,180 --> 00:42:10,600
use, but they're already using them, so that's pretty cool.

512
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:17,060
what we see over here is we go sort of a little bit further up the past, past my own post,

513
00:42:17,340 --> 00:42:22,580
1.80, 5.5 is that the highway is not crossing any more of these big drainages anymore.

514
00:42:23,260 --> 00:42:27,580
So there's no more bridges and there's nowhere for wildlife to cross.

515
00:42:27,700 --> 00:42:30,280
There's no more infrastructure than like small drainage pipes.

516
00:42:30,780 --> 00:42:36,680
So this is an area where we think, okay, well, we have a lot of good things going on here.

517
00:42:36,740 --> 00:42:39,960
How can we improve it so that there's also a couple opportunities?

518
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:43,560
because it's not just about funneling animals to one specific location,

519
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:48,280
it's trying to provide us multiple opportunities for them to

520
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:52,160
more restore actual connectivity at the landscape scale, not just

521
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:56,180
one bottleneck, because not only every animal will find it that way.

522
00:42:56,740 --> 00:43:00,960
So this is an area where there is a recommendation for a new arch culvert,

523
00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:04,820
as well as a new wildlife overpass.

524
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:07,940
And that wildlife overpass recommendation largely derives

525
00:43:07,940 --> 00:43:13,420
as a train consideration because it would be a lot more work to dig out a bridge here

526
00:43:13,420 --> 00:43:17,480
than to put an overpass over the road for wildlife.

527
00:43:20,060 --> 00:43:22,980
Yeah, I know that one of the issues on that

528
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:34,100
sort of there is a short...

529
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:42,640
Replace in a culvert also doing like sister and sister stuff to remove that.

530
00:43:45,630 --> 00:43:49,390
Yes and now I guess I mean a little bit I think probably could be better

531
00:43:50,670 --> 00:43:57,970
that in terms of being aware that certainly that there are a lot of sedimentation issues

532
00:43:57,970 --> 00:44:02,710
into Black Court Creek, I think we looked more because there was a lot of concern from

533
00:44:02,710 --> 00:44:09,450
the watershed council that the construction process of building it over past would increase

534
00:44:09,450 --> 00:44:13,590
sedimentation in the creek and they've done so much work to restore that system.

535
00:44:13,590 --> 00:44:21,550
And so that was certainly an issue that was looked at in terms of trying to improve some of those

536
00:44:21,550 --> 00:44:21,950
culverts.

537
00:44:22,390 --> 00:44:26,190
They're really just small direct, because black work creek is actually paralleling the

538
00:44:26,190 --> 00:44:26,650
inner state.

539
00:44:26,990 --> 00:44:30,930
And we want to put in structures that would go under, so perpendicular to the inner state.

540
00:44:31,230 --> 00:44:31,910
That makes sense.

541
00:44:32,510 --> 00:44:38,450
And so those drainage structures that go underneath are typically a femoral streams and just

542
00:44:38,450 --> 00:44:48,770
small drainage pipes that not really, I'm we're looking at larger fauna that we want to

543
00:44:48,770 --> 00:44:56,530
in this area. So things like elk and deer and links. And so in that case, anything that's

544
00:44:56,530 --> 00:45:00,010
kind of, you know, even if it was a slightly like a bottom, a very bottom culvert.

545
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:06,520
There's something like that. It's still wouldn't function for those species. It'd have to be a larger structure in order to work for those target species.

546
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:09,360
Did you have a question as well?

547
00:45:09,500 --> 00:45:11,000
No, I was just trying to...

548
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:13,140
Okay. Awesome, thanks.

549
00:45:14,940 --> 00:45:17,640
Julia, the shading on those, that's animal.

550
00:45:17,900 --> 00:45:20,960
I'm sorry, wrong way. Oh, God, how does this...

551
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:24,260
I'm just going to go back.

552
00:45:26,370 --> 00:45:34,510
And do you, and I know that it starts adding a lot of layers, but have you looked at

553
00:45:38,740 --> 00:45:42,740
overlaying ABCs with the priority level shading?

554
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:50,300
So, to some pieces there is the same, but a lot of pieces are different.

555
00:45:51,460 --> 00:45:55,540
So, this is the animal vehicle collusion later that layer, those greens.

556
00:45:55,540 --> 00:45:59,560
So those are lower animal vehicle collision rates

557
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:01,840
in this particular priority zone.

558
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:09,680
And in terms of overlaying that collision data with the priority layers,

559
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:14,860
that would be somewhat duplicitous because the animal vehicle

560
00:46:14,860 --> 00:46:18,880
collision layer was one of the analysis layers that we included in identifying

561
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:20,200
those priority zones.

562
00:46:21,720 --> 00:46:26,330
But certainly, Cida and many others are interested in knowing where those

563
00:46:27,380 --> 00:46:30,200
collusion areas are. And from a funding standpoint, that's also important

564
00:46:30,200 --> 00:46:34,080
because it gives you access to safety funds for transportation.

565
00:46:35,020 --> 00:46:38,420
If you want to do some of these mitigations in areas where there's high

566
00:46:38,420 --> 00:46:42,580
collusion rates, which we often do, then you can access different

567
00:46:42,580 --> 00:46:43,340
pots of funding.

568
00:46:47,780 --> 00:46:47,780
Okay.

569
00:46:49,940 --> 00:46:51,660
Okay, so this is kind of what I was talking about

570
00:46:51,660 --> 00:46:54,460
with the bridges. I just wanted to give you an idea of this because

571
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:59,260
is retrofitting can mean a lot of different things.

572
00:46:59,340 --> 00:47:01,760
And it really just depends on whatever's going on at that site.

573
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:06,000
And what those conditions are and what's needed

574
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:08,320
for whatever wildlife or present in that area.

575
00:47:08,820 --> 00:47:11,960
But as a situation that we see time and time again,

576
00:47:12,060 --> 00:47:14,740
on I-70, I'm pretty much anywhere in the US,

577
00:47:15,420 --> 00:47:19,840
are these bridges that have a lot of rip wrap on them.

578
00:47:20,260 --> 00:47:23,120
And from an engineering standpoint, rip wrap is great.

579
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:25,720
It stabilizes slopes and when water comes through,

580
00:47:25,740 --> 00:47:28,620
it keeps the soil in place and prevents further erosion

581
00:47:28,620 --> 00:47:30,080
and things like that.

582
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:32,980
From wildlife standpoint, it's less great

583
00:47:32,980 --> 00:47:35,420
because it's a barrier for some species,

584
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:36,760
for a lot of species actually.

585
00:47:37,540 --> 00:47:40,080
So we're not saying, okay, completely get rid of rip-rop,

586
00:47:40,220 --> 00:47:42,420
but we are saying, okay, how can we create pathways

587
00:47:42,420 --> 00:47:43,560
through here?

588
00:47:44,140 --> 00:47:46,580
So that we don't undermine the slope stability

589
00:47:46,580 --> 00:47:48,980
but that we can create one of these dry,

590
00:47:48,980 --> 00:47:50,960
level pathways for wildlife.

591
00:47:50,960 --> 00:47:57,440
And here's a couple ways of how that can be done, and this example, none of these are from the same location, but just to give you an idea.

592
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:08,240
In this area, you know, we're able to open up this whole area and put in this retaining wall, as a support, but actually be able to open up a really wide pathway.

593
00:48:08,580 --> 00:48:13,460
So that's one way of doing it. In other cases, you might not even have to do that.

594
00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:17,140
Here, they were just kind of able to clear away this one's from Utah.

595
00:48:17,140 --> 00:48:22,780
They were able to clear this pathway out and just kind of redesign it a little bit.

596
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:30,580
So a pretty minor, relatively improvement to that structure to make it useful for wildlife.

597
00:48:31,340 --> 00:48:35,700
And there's that you can see there are a little bit hesitant, but the monitoring work that

598
00:48:35,700 --> 00:48:38,260
my colleague is doing there has shown that they are using this structure.

599
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:40,020
So that's pretty cool.

600
00:48:40,060 --> 00:48:47,120
So this is one example where we have monitoring of a retrofit, but there's uh,

601
00:48:48,680 --> 00:49:16,240
And then I thought I'd give you just a couple of examples of some of the new structures and what those can look like on i70 because it's a big interstate and there's a lot of laying the traffic pretty much anything we do in terms of new structures is going to have to be big because as something you know structure gets longer for the longer distance animal has to travel under the interstate kind of the wider and the taller it needs to be as well for a lot of species and so

602
00:49:16,900 --> 00:49:20,440
This is actually on Highway 285 kind of in the conifer area.

603
00:49:20,460 --> 00:49:25,340
This was a design specifically for wildlife in the past couple of years and you can see

604
00:49:25,340 --> 00:49:26,560
these deer using it.

605
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:32,320
I don't think any structure that small for the most part, we'd be looking at larger structures

606
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:39,540
such as this one in under I think it's Interstate 5 in Utah and this one on I-Nandy in Washington

607
00:49:39,540 --> 00:49:46,780
state and these are really large arch culverts and they're actually two structures one under

608
00:49:46,780 --> 00:49:53,400
the each of the opposing lanes of traffic with an open median with natural habitat and that median.

609
00:49:54,300 --> 00:49:58,660
So that in that case when you have these really big structures that might be something in some areas

610
00:49:58,660 --> 00:49:59,960
where we would consider that.

611
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:08,080
That is an option for I-70 bridges. Here's what, sorry, that's a dark, it looks nice on my computer.

612
00:50:10,660 --> 00:50:13,860
That's one of the open-span bridges on Westfell Pass pretty cool.

613
00:50:14,020 --> 00:50:22,820
Even though they all just wingering under there, and it's just spanning all the habitat and that's working really well.

614
00:50:23,360 --> 00:50:29,160
In other cases, you have these other, this is also on Bale Pass, and this is down near Durango and Florida River.

615
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:33,840
where they're also using these kinds of smaller bridge structures

616
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:40,060
that are wide enough open enough that they feel safe enough and that there's enough of an escape route

617
00:50:40,060 --> 00:50:42,120
that they'll enter into these structures.

618
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:48,940
So bridges are really a great underpass solution to improving connections for wildlife.

619
00:50:51,590 --> 00:50:53,050
And then there's overpasses.

620
00:50:53,510 --> 00:50:57,810
So the overpasses actually really originated in Europe.

621
00:50:57,810 --> 00:51:01,150
And they built a number of these across many European countries.

622
00:51:02,010 --> 00:51:04,190
These two here are examples.

623
00:51:04,990 --> 00:51:07,470
I honestly forget where those two are, so I can't tell you.

624
00:51:08,270 --> 00:51:10,770
But they call them eco-ducks there for the most part.

625
00:51:12,170 --> 00:51:14,990
In North America, we have fewer, but we do have some.

626
00:51:15,230 --> 00:51:20,910
This one actually is a proposed overpass in Washington over I90.

627
00:51:21,110 --> 00:51:24,870
So it hasn't been built, but there's been a lot of research going on in that area.

628
00:51:24,870 --> 00:51:27,210
And there are hopefully they'll be able to build it

629
00:51:27,210 --> 00:51:28,290
at some time soon here.

630
00:51:28,670 --> 00:51:30,410
And this other one in upper left corner,

631
00:51:30,850 --> 00:51:33,790
that's a prong horn over past that was built in Wyoming.

632
00:51:34,050 --> 00:51:35,690
A couple of years ago, there are two of them

633
00:51:35,690 --> 00:51:38,090
that were built over Highway 191 as part

634
00:51:38,090 --> 00:51:41,190
of the prong horn migration, the path to the prong horn.

635
00:51:41,210 --> 00:51:43,670
If you've heard of that, so this is part of that.

636
00:51:43,670 --> 00:51:46,430
And after two seasons monitoring, it's been great

637
00:51:46,430 --> 00:51:48,470
because the prong horn are using them happily.

638
00:51:48,470 --> 00:51:50,910
And so that's really good news.

639
00:51:51,050 --> 00:51:53,350
And with very little hesitation, the first time

640
00:51:53,350 --> 00:51:58,070
encountered it that kind of hesitated. And now they're just crossing without hesitation. So that's

641
00:51:58,070 --> 00:52:04,590
very promising. There is a little bit of a learning curve. Yeah. When you see like a virtual.

642
00:52:14,530 --> 00:52:22,870
Yeah, that's a good question. When we construct a structure like this, you really want to make

643
00:52:22,870 --> 00:52:27,670
sure you're putting it pretty much in the right place in the first place. So that location should

644
00:52:27,670 --> 00:52:29,910
the coincide with where they want to go.

645
00:52:30,070 --> 00:52:36,510
So there shouldn't be too much of a, like, oh, wait, let's go way down here, a few miles and

646
00:52:36,510 --> 00:52:37,710
find this crossing structure.

647
00:52:38,010 --> 00:52:41,150
What we're aiming to do is put it where we're kind of where we know they're already going.

648
00:52:41,590 --> 00:52:47,690
But what we do see, obviously, within a little bit of room for error there, and what we

649
00:52:47,690 --> 00:52:52,310
do see is that there is a learning curve, for sure, with a lot of different animals that mothers

650
00:52:52,310 --> 00:52:57,550
will teach their young, that animal-like links will leave a cent track, and other links will

651
00:52:57,550 --> 00:53:03,270
follow in the future. So these kinds of things, you know, we don't, we want to get it more

652
00:53:03,270 --> 00:53:07,850
or less in the right spot, and it's going to depend on other things like terrain and some

653
00:53:07,850 --> 00:53:13,850
of the geotechnical stuff. So we have a little room for error, but we want to, you know,

654
00:53:13,950 --> 00:53:18,750
first get it in the right plot place. A good example of that actually is, I fear familiar with

655
00:53:18,750 --> 00:53:23,750
the overpasses in BAM. People look at those, and they're like, wow, you guys did this

656
00:53:23,750 --> 00:53:32,370
They're so many animals that are using them and there are and interestingly, those overpasses aren't in the exact location where the biologists were recommended.

657
00:53:32,910 --> 00:53:34,870
They got moved a little bit.

658
00:53:35,210 --> 00:53:40,230
There's fencing to guide animals to them and animals have learned to use them.

659
00:53:40,570 --> 00:53:45,630
And so that's, so, you know, within a certain amount of range, yes, you can, they will learn.

660
00:53:45,630 --> 00:53:50,010
And certainly, in BAMs, they've seen that with the black bears over 10 years,

661
00:53:50,370 --> 00:53:55,710
at first for a long time, the black bear use was really low, and now we've really seen that increase

662
00:53:55,710 --> 00:53:57,870
a lot, so there's been a huge learning curve there.

663
00:54:03,480 --> 00:54:05,500
So the other thing that we were able to provide

664
00:54:05,500 --> 00:54:12,780
for the I-70 project was sort of a set of best practice guidance. So these are things that are

665
00:54:13,180 --> 00:54:19,480
applicable anywhere you want to create more wildlife friendly transportation infrastructure.

666
00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:26,900
So, not just in those priorities zones that we highlighted, but anywhere, so anytime there's a project,

667
00:54:27,340 --> 00:54:31,820
you can refer to these kinds of best practices and do a better job, essentially,

668
00:54:32,100 --> 00:54:33,340
making it more wildlife friendly.

669
00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:37,280
And then, of course, I always have to kind of take the horn of long-term monitoring,

670
00:54:37,540 --> 00:54:38,460
because that's really important.

671
00:54:38,460 --> 00:54:41,240
This is how we learn about what works and what doesn't work,

672
00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:43,920
and so that we can apply that knowledge to future projects.

673
00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:52,780
I can't really emphasize that because not enough money and effort is put into monitoring and it's really really valuable.

674
00:54:53,660 --> 00:54:56,340
So I include that as one of the best practices.

675
00:54:58,620 --> 00:54:59,960
So we're at two o'clock.

676
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:07,000
I have a few more slides here. I can zip through them or I can kind of talk about them a little bit more.

677
00:55:07,100 --> 00:55:10,340
I was going to just mention the Highway 9 because I think that's an interesting project.

678
00:55:11,300 --> 00:55:13,760
But I don't know. Let you guys tell me what you like at this point.

679
00:55:15,580 --> 00:55:18,300
Do you want to keep going? I'm happy to keep going.

680
00:55:18,780 --> 00:55:19,980
So, okay. Great.

681
00:55:21,140 --> 00:55:29,000
All right. So, Highway 9, probably a lot of you have heard about this project and this is what Jim was referencing

682
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:37,380
earlier. This is a project in just north of Silverthorne between Green Mountain Reservoir and Crumling.

683
00:55:39,120 --> 00:55:45,740
And in 2015, they'll start construction on 11 miles of highway. It's a safety improvement

684
00:55:45,740 --> 00:55:53,460
project. At all those dots there are collisions with wildlife. All those red dots. There's been

685
00:55:53,460 --> 00:55:56,660
of human fake cell tall days on that roadway as well.

686
00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:01,300
And I think we have a lot we can learn from this project.

687
00:56:01,420 --> 00:56:03,400
And that's kind of why I inserted this slide in here,

688
00:56:03,540 --> 00:56:05,140
because not only is it really cool and exciting,

689
00:56:05,880 --> 00:56:09,300
but it's an opportunity for us to capitalize on this

690
00:56:09,300 --> 00:56:12,700
and hopefully do projects like this in places like Eagle County

691
00:56:12,700 --> 00:56:14,160
and other counties in Colorado.

692
00:56:15,200 --> 00:56:18,180
So there's these seven crossings to overpasses

693
00:56:18,180 --> 00:56:20,660
and five underpasses that are going to be connected by fencing.

694
00:56:21,600 --> 00:56:26,440
And I think it would, you know, it would be easy to dismiss this and say,

695
00:56:26,780 --> 00:56:31,480
Oh, well, you know, they have this conservation ranch there,

696
00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:34,480
and there's a billionaire, and he gave all this money.

697
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:36,560
And that's why they have this project.

698
00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:38,180
We can't do that anywhere else.

699
00:56:38,380 --> 00:56:40,960
That's just, you know, we don't have billionaires conveniently

700
00:56:40,960 --> 00:56:43,240
stashed in our pocket that every segment of roadway

701
00:56:43,240 --> 00:56:44,940
where we want to do this kind of work, right?

702
00:56:45,560 --> 00:56:46,040
Yeah, we do.

703
00:56:46,740 --> 00:56:48,160
Okay, you might in Eagle County.

704
00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:54,580
But, you know, I mean, and it's great where we do, you know, we want to capitalize on that,

705
00:56:54,740 --> 00:57:00,860
but even where we don't, it's not just about that one source, I mean, there's no doubt that Mr. Jones

706
00:57:00,860 --> 00:57:07,220
had a huge role in getting this project off the ground, but it was really the community that initiated

707
00:57:07,220 --> 00:57:12,420
this project years ago. They've been talking about doing this for over 10 years, like 15 years,

708
00:57:12,420 --> 00:57:20,260
maybe I don't know more. And so it was their inspiration and the ranch got involved in that

709
00:57:20,260 --> 00:57:26,640
which is awesome. And but it was also their involvement that got this project over the finish line.

710
00:57:27,740 --> 00:57:34,440
So the million dollars that Mr. Jones donated in the first place really got the whole ball rolling.

711
00:57:34,440 --> 00:57:42,420
But the community, when it came down to it, they were able to raise a million dollars in three months,

712
00:57:42,660 --> 00:57:48,060
which I think is really impressive, and that instigated the county to donate more funding for the project.

713
00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:53,480
And at that point, you see that can't turn around and say, oh, we're not going to fund that project.

714
00:57:53,840 --> 00:57:56,660
No way, there's so much support for this project.

715
00:57:56,660 --> 00:58:02,120
So, Cida, you know, they said, okay, you came up with a 20% matching funds.

716
00:58:02,660 --> 00:58:06,760
All right, you know, and there were certainly pieces that wasn't all as simple as that,

717
00:58:06,760 --> 00:58:10,580
but there were pieces that came together, there were some protrudes as timing and things like that,

718
00:58:10,580 --> 00:58:18,440
but I just want to say the role of the community and the community involvement in making this project happen

719
00:58:18,440 --> 00:58:23,960
is a huge lesson for all of us, because I think that as we move forward, that's going to be more and more important.

720
00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:28,980
these projects aren't going to happen with CDOT just alone or federal highways.

721
00:58:29,780 --> 00:58:34,140
It's going to have to come from the people who live in these places and who are really

722
00:58:34,140 --> 00:58:37,560
you know, insisting on this kind of thing and participating in it as well.

723
00:58:39,240 --> 00:58:41,300
So, it is a really exciting project.

724
00:58:41,500 --> 00:58:44,960
And I think it is something a lot of people want to be involved in too.

725
00:58:45,000 --> 00:58:49,280
And that CDOT actually kept the design for this project in turn rather than contracting it out

726
00:58:49,280 --> 00:58:50,800
because they wanted to be involved in it.

727
00:58:50,800 --> 00:58:56,060
So I think that's really excellent that people are excited about it, and we're going to learn

728
00:58:56,060 --> 00:59:00,920
a lot about it too because we're going to do some good monitoring work, so that'll be fun.

729
00:59:06,560 --> 00:59:15,140
I guess at this point, I just wanted to say that I'm clearly, a lot of this has to do more

730
00:59:15,140 --> 00:59:20,840
with things like collaboration than it does with the science of road ecology when it comes down

731
00:59:20,840 --> 00:59:22,180
to getting this work done.

732
00:59:22,720 --> 00:59:27,600
It's not going to be about, do we know what to do and where?

733
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:29,820
We pretty much know what we need to do,

734
00:59:29,820 --> 00:59:31,460
and we know more or less where we need to do it.

735
00:59:31,580 --> 00:59:35,320
We can figure that piece out what it really comes down to

736
00:59:35,320 --> 00:59:38,120
is how are we going to work together to get this done?

737
00:59:38,800 --> 00:59:41,020
And that's going to require a lot of different pieces

738
00:59:42,240 --> 00:59:44,560
because when we talk about the landscape scale,

739
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:45,920
it's kind of our big picture.

740
00:59:46,140 --> 00:59:48,980
So we talk about connectivity at this landscape scale,

741
00:59:48,980 --> 00:59:54,800
sort of nebulus, but what really is are all those little pieces, because we work at a local

742
00:59:54,800 --> 01:00:00,000
scale. And all those projects that we do, whether you're a land-trip.

743
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:28,900
August or county or a, you know, a landowner with a conservation easement or anything, even a developer, you know, all those pieces how they fit together to form this big picture because ultimately, you know, we're going to have to figure out, okay, how do we work together? How do we collaborate across jurisdictional boundaries? Because wildlife don't stop those boundaries, not necessarily. So we're going to need to work across those boundaries. If we want to create a landscape that is functional for wildlife to traverse across that.

744
01:00:30,360 --> 01:00:37,380
I think it is probably all of you have experience, that kind of, in a organizational collaboration,

745
01:00:38,440 --> 01:00:42,660
working on that early in the process, getting that ball rolling, having those conversations,

746
01:00:42,820 --> 01:00:48,020
getting all the issues out on the table from the outset, that is really going to pay off in the long run

747
01:00:48,020 --> 01:00:50,780
and you're going to have fewer surprises in the long run.

748
01:00:51,020 --> 01:00:55,120
And you're going to be able to work through these issues and probably find new opportunities and things like that.

749
01:00:55,120 --> 01:01:00,260
So that collaboration piece is absolutely essential

750
01:01:00,260 --> 01:01:02,860
if we want to talk about conserving landscape connectivity.

751
01:01:04,720 --> 01:01:10,000
And I think these last slides is kind of, you know,

752
01:01:10,020 --> 01:01:10,780
I'm wrapping up.

753
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:17,360
And just to sort of keep this dialogue going

754
01:01:17,360 --> 01:01:19,420
and kind of get people thinking about,

755
01:01:19,520 --> 01:01:21,200
okay, what is this going to look like for us?

756
01:01:21,620 --> 01:01:22,660
So, you know, kind of thinking about,

757
01:01:22,760 --> 01:01:25,340
okay, we talk about this thing called the big picture.

758
01:01:25,340 --> 01:01:27,420
And what would that actually look like?

759
01:01:27,420 --> 01:01:30,800
How do these different pieces of human development

760
01:01:30,800 --> 01:01:34,240
and recreation is certainly a big thing around here?

761
01:01:34,500 --> 01:01:36,520
That's why we live here, it's why I love Colorado.

762
01:01:38,000 --> 01:01:40,940
And other board traditional land uses like ranching and farming

763
01:01:40,940 --> 01:01:43,920
and things like that, how can we bring these pieces together

764
01:01:43,920 --> 01:01:45,620
to have more of a landscape vision

765
01:01:45,620 --> 01:01:47,840
so that all of our individual projects actually

766
01:01:47,840 --> 01:01:49,660
feed towards a common vision?

767
01:01:50,280 --> 01:01:53,920
And there's a couple things, well, I guess.

768
01:01:55,860 --> 01:01:57,560
Man, too fast.

769
01:02:00,420 --> 01:02:06,440
It's just thinking about, okay, what are these different elements and what will it take to get there?

770
01:02:06,440 --> 01:02:15,020
What will it take to create a landscape where the landscape is connected and while life can move more freely across that landscape?

771
01:02:15,240 --> 01:02:23,920
Where there's community awareness and engagement in these issues and an understanding of why this is important and how it relates to our quality of lives.

772
01:02:23,920 --> 01:02:27,320
And how we can have more compatible land uses

773
01:02:27,320 --> 01:02:30,320
across jurisdictional and ownership boundaries.

774
01:02:30,960 --> 01:02:32,800
And what is it going to take us to get there?

775
01:02:33,700 --> 01:02:35,440
So this last slide is really,

776
01:02:35,720 --> 01:02:37,840
this is a link using our knowledge.

777
01:02:38,000 --> 01:02:41,360
A Bob Kack, you're doing a small culvert under I-70,

778
01:02:41,560 --> 01:02:42,360
which was kind of fun.

779
01:02:42,680 --> 01:02:45,020
We saw a lot of Bob Kack activity at this place.

780
01:02:46,920 --> 01:02:48,940
And just to get us thinking about,

781
01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:49,880
OK, well, what can we do?

782
01:02:49,900 --> 01:02:52,100
So here's a couple of ideas and things

783
01:02:52,100 --> 01:02:56,400
that I've talked about with people about, okay, what will this take?

784
01:02:56,520 --> 01:02:59,640
What does it, what does it look like to create a connected landscape?

785
01:02:59,800 --> 01:03:03,240
And I think, you know, certainly this first one is something that you guys have already been

786
01:03:03,240 --> 01:03:08,100
talking about here in Eagle County, integrating wildlife connectivity and large landscape considerations

787
01:03:08,100 --> 01:03:13,840
into county planning and permitting, that's certainly one element also working with public

788
01:03:13,840 --> 01:03:22,080
lands and public lands management, a couple other things all throughout their, this is something

789
01:03:22,080 --> 01:03:30,480
that will applaud a county down so the Durango area that they created a volunteer board living

790
01:03:30,480 --> 01:03:37,240
with wildlife advisory board and it was really a board that convened to advise the county commissioners

791
01:03:37,240 --> 01:03:44,280
and to on issues that were around wildlife in the county. So not strictly roads and wildlife also

792
01:03:44,280 --> 01:03:50,240
just home ownership and wildlife country and those kinds of things. And so to provide that information

793
01:03:50,240 --> 01:03:55,540
and resources to the county but also to the public and to provide public education and awareness

794
01:03:55,540 --> 01:04:03,820
resources. So I think that kind of advisory board is a really neat idea. One thing that I really

795
01:04:03,820 --> 01:04:08,720
would like to see is sort of an inner agency or even broader than just agencies, bringing

796
01:04:08,720 --> 01:04:14,600
the universities and researchers to have a science advisory group basically, a wildlife

797
01:04:14,600 --> 01:04:19,680
crossings work from group. This is something I've seen a little bit in Canada, but I think this

798
01:04:19,680 --> 01:04:24,020
be more effective at a state level, you know, but as a resource, then that a county could come

799
01:04:24,020 --> 01:04:29,240
to and draw on and say, hey, we're working on these projects, can you advise us on these

800
01:04:29,240 --> 01:04:33,960
project with the best, most up-to-date science, because not every county is going to have that

801
01:04:33,960 --> 01:04:37,660
at their fingertips, you know, that CDIC could come to you, that the Forest Service could come

802
01:04:37,660 --> 01:04:43,340
to, that a private developer could use these resources and get advice when they want to integrate

803
01:04:43,340 --> 01:04:48,560
more wildlife friendly designs into projects. So that's kind of a big picture idea for the state

804
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:50,360
but maybe someday we'll get there.

805
01:04:52,820 --> 01:04:54,640
And inevitably a lot of the stuff

806
01:04:54,640 --> 01:04:57,220
come down to funding and you've heard me say already

807
01:04:57,220 --> 01:04:59,940
that I think it is gonna require a lot.

808
01:05:01,400 --> 01:05:10,940
Local support and local fundraising, and tap into those billionaires and everybody else, because it's not going to just come from see dot anymore.

809
01:05:11,300 --> 01:05:18,540
It's not going to come from federal highways. You know, we can get matching funds, but we're going to be more position better position for those matching funds.

810
01:05:18,640 --> 01:05:27,660
If we were already generated a lot of local support and funding to go along with that. So, you know, thinking about what how that can happen and where that is,

811
01:05:27,660 --> 01:05:30,040
is going to be really useful.

812
01:05:30,880 --> 01:05:33,420
And again, I mean, all the information that's in that report

813
01:05:33,420 --> 01:05:37,000
I'm happy to work with you guys further on providing that kind

814
01:05:37,000 --> 01:05:40,200
of information and helping you sift through what you think priorities

815
01:05:40,200 --> 01:05:43,420
might be for Eagle County and where you might want to put your

816
01:05:43,420 --> 01:05:45,220
efforts initially and things like that.

817
01:05:45,840 --> 01:05:48,520
So that's something that I'll offer to you.

818
01:05:49,560 --> 01:05:50,760
And then anything else you guys have.

819
01:05:52,480 --> 01:05:53,380
So that's the end of that.

820
01:05:55,360 --> 01:05:57,240
That's one of my favorite pictures from.

821
01:05:58,420 --> 01:06:02,700
from the monitoring. So thanks, you guys, and I definitely want to open it up.

822
01:06:08,640 --> 01:06:08,940
Julia,

823
01:06:09,180 --> 01:06:15,960
have a question of the animal vehicle collision data come from

824
01:06:21,270 --> 01:06:22,550
about the forward actor.

825
01:06:23,310 --> 01:06:30,450
Yeah, that's a great question. So when we were working on the I-70 ecological project,

826
01:06:33,550 --> 01:06:36,670
there are some segments of the fencing had been in place for a while,

827
01:06:36,670 --> 01:06:41,890
And then there were some segments that were getting constructed right as we were completing the project.

828
01:06:43,310 --> 01:06:47,090
And so, that's something that we've considered.

829
01:06:47,930 --> 01:06:52,550
Our data is not really good enough to be able to answer that question.

830
01:06:53,170 --> 01:06:55,010
And certainly with the newest segment of Fencing.

831
01:06:55,550 --> 01:07:02,530
You know, we're probably getting to a point where we could go back and look at those data from before and after and see what changes there are.

832
01:07:02,650 --> 01:07:03,410
I haven't done that.

833
01:07:03,410 --> 01:07:06,190
So I think it would be interesting though.

834
01:07:07,690 --> 01:07:10,550
Unfortunately, the thing with animal vehicle collision data

835
01:07:10,550 --> 01:07:14,530
is that it comes from primarily from accident reports.

836
01:07:15,010 --> 01:07:15,570
So state patrol.

837
01:07:16,370 --> 01:07:17,930
So somebody doesn't report an accident.

838
01:07:18,490 --> 01:07:19,830
It doesn't want to make an insurance claim.

839
01:07:19,910 --> 01:07:21,170
It doesn't want to deal with that.

840
01:07:22,170 --> 01:07:23,230
Then it doesn't get reported.

841
01:07:23,450 --> 01:07:25,150
And there's, you know, it's

842
01:07:25,150 --> 01:07:26,070
putting on who you ask.

843
01:07:26,690 --> 01:07:30,670
Those estimates are best that it's 50% of the actual collision

844
01:07:30,670 --> 01:07:40,130
rates, and maybe only, maybe a lot less than that, and in addition, that's only, I mean,

845
01:07:40,230 --> 01:07:44,070
there's all the collisions where animals might even just wander off into the woods or things

846
01:07:44,070 --> 01:07:45,970
like that, and they might not die on the roadway.

847
01:07:45,970 --> 01:07:51,310
So see that has to do some voluntary across it with their maintenance staff, voluntary data

848
01:07:51,850 --> 01:07:57,590
collection, but it's not consistent from one seed out region to the next.

849
01:07:57,590 --> 01:08:02,650
So we can't really use it very easily unless you're working only on a very, very specific project.

850
01:08:02,790 --> 01:08:04,590
You can't do anything in a broader region with it.

851
01:08:05,110 --> 01:08:09,090
So the fact that we don't have good data is one of the issues that we're dealing with.

852
01:08:09,590 --> 01:08:11,110
And every state is dealing with.

853
01:08:11,610 --> 01:08:14,030
So it's something we're working on.

854
01:08:14,550 --> 01:08:18,710
You expect to find that you have you ever considered partnerships with environmental organizations.

855
01:08:18,710 --> 01:08:20,510
but the state should be servicing it for a while,

856
01:08:20,790 --> 01:08:24,510
I can think of it like that to generate those

857
01:08:24,510 --> 01:08:26,150
mentioned dollars that are needed to get

858
01:08:26,150 --> 01:08:27,050
so you got to be interested.

859
01:08:28,010 --> 01:08:31,630
Yeah, and I worked for one of those for a good while.

860
01:08:32,890 --> 01:08:36,950
And we definitely, we definitely tried to do that.

861
01:08:37,430 --> 01:08:41,330
And so the organization that I used to work for is now

862
01:08:41,330 --> 01:08:42,430
part of a different, you know,

863
01:08:42,470 --> 01:08:44,010
they're merged into another organization,

864
01:08:44,250 --> 01:08:45,350
but that's called Rocky Mountain Wild.

865
01:08:45,350 --> 01:08:48,050
And Rocky Mountain Wild is still continuing

866
01:08:48,050 --> 01:08:53,810
to try to do this work. They are still trying to raise funds to do some of this work. It's

867
01:08:53,810 --> 01:09:00,130
been pretty slow for sure. But there are some examples where it has been effective. I think

868
01:09:00,130 --> 01:09:05,310
the problem crossing and Wyoming, the environmental group's definitely had a role in that,

869
01:09:05,370 --> 01:09:09,410
a lot of live conservation society among them. I think maybe the Nature Conservancy, I don't remember.

870
01:09:09,410 --> 01:09:22,390
And those organizations, along with the university research institutes, and ultimately a lot of that funding actually came from the oil and gas industry.

871
01:09:22,630 --> 01:09:28,890
Because that's right in an area that is where that habitat for the prawn horn migration is getting pregnant in by oil and gas.

872
01:09:30,290 --> 01:09:35,030
So definitely, I think all avenues should be explored for funding.

873
01:09:35,630 --> 01:09:38,390
Does anybody else have anything or any ideas?

874
01:09:39,170 --> 01:09:41,610
I have a question, sorry, let's ask it.

875
01:09:43,210 --> 01:09:50,630
But is there any evidence that traffic structures over a highman that has more than 10,000 vehicles

876
01:09:51,270 --> 01:09:54,690
at its brief established migration route?

877
01:09:55,030 --> 01:09:57,510
In the problem horn, that's at pretty low.

878
01:09:58,510 --> 01:09:58,690
Yeah.

879
01:09:58,690 --> 01:09:59,950
I'll never think of it. I said me.

880
01:10:01,390 --> 01:10:08,170
Migration routes. And if we put in a overpass, do we have any data that suggests that that could get

881
01:10:08,170 --> 01:10:09,470
actually raised down motion?

882
01:10:09,570 --> 01:10:16,210
That a migration route. Again, it depends on the location. I mean, some, I think, you know, we don't

883
01:10:16,210 --> 01:10:23,890
have anything as iconic as the path of the pronghorn to that we're going to re-establish here.

884
01:10:24,630 --> 01:10:30,350
However, there are certainly smaller migrations that, yes, absolutely, I think we can.

885
01:10:30,350 --> 01:10:33,310
And I think the structure that Bill was mentioning it

886
01:10:33,310 --> 01:10:34,030
doubts junction.

887
01:10:34,650 --> 01:10:37,550
Again, that structure was there was recognition

888
01:10:37,550 --> 01:10:40,770
that there was a milder migration through here.

889
01:10:41,090 --> 01:10:43,650
And I need to move between winter and summer range.

890
01:10:44,670 --> 01:10:50,250
And that was the purpose was to restore that connection.

891
01:10:50,910 --> 01:10:54,310
And again, when you're talking about,

892
01:10:54,310 --> 01:10:55,890
when you're designing a crossing structure,

893
01:10:56,870 --> 01:10:58,430
and you're looking at individual animals

894
01:10:58,430 --> 01:10:59,470
and individual movements,

895
01:10:59,470 --> 01:11:05,130
It is different than when you're talking about huge migrations and you have to think bigger

896
01:11:05,130 --> 01:11:07,410
because there's more animals.

897
01:11:08,790 --> 01:11:14,430
And so that's something that we'll have to think about in these areas, even where there's a smaller migration,

898
01:11:14,470 --> 01:11:16,590
you know, relative to some of these massive migrations.

899
01:11:16,650 --> 01:11:22,470
In the northwest part of the state, you know, where we have some of the biggest elk and deer herds in the country,

900
01:11:23,270 --> 01:11:28,130
That must again, so Highway 13 is one of those areas between Craig and Rifle.

901
01:11:29,150 --> 01:11:35,390
That area, you know, to restore those connections, it's going to be challenging just because

902
01:11:35,390 --> 01:11:37,430
there's a lot of animals that you're dealing with.

903
01:11:37,670 --> 01:11:42,610
So I think there is potential, especially with some of the smaller migration movements.

904
01:11:42,910 --> 01:11:46,370
Yeah, and I think we can do that over I-7, even though it's a big highway.

905
01:11:46,370 --> 01:11:54,650
Absolutely. There's a lot of, I think, I think what's going to get hard is if we increase

906
01:11:54,650 --> 01:12:00,390
a lot of lanes. Right now with four lanes and maybe a median, there's a lot of evidence

907
01:12:00,390 --> 01:12:05,430
that we can create crossing structures that are functional. But if we increase one of the plans

908
01:12:05,430 --> 01:12:14,050
that was being discussed in the traffic and revenue study was for like four additional manage lanes

909
01:12:14,050 --> 01:12:17,890
telling links, so adding that to the four existing links,

910
01:12:18,430 --> 01:12:21,050
that's eight lanes of traffic, that's LA style.

911
01:12:21,530 --> 01:12:23,870
I don't know, I don't know if we can do anything

912
01:12:23,870 --> 01:12:25,710
over a lanes of traffic with no median.

913
01:12:26,470 --> 01:12:28,030
That would be tough.

914
01:12:28,670 --> 01:12:30,230
But I mean, I think we should try some of these things,

915
01:12:30,310 --> 01:12:30,930
but it would be tough,

916
01:12:35,840 --> 01:12:35,840
yeah.

917
01:12:36,340 --> 01:12:38,700
Well, if that's it, thanks, you guys.

918
01:12:38,920 --> 01:12:40,500
And it really, it is really my hope

919
01:12:40,500 --> 01:12:44,340
that this generates more discussion and dialogue.

920
01:12:44,340 --> 01:12:46,420
I see this as a starting point for this.

921
01:12:46,420 --> 01:12:48,220
And like I said, I mean, there's a lot more

922
01:12:48,220 --> 01:12:51,820
information and data that we have and we're happy to share that and you know

923
01:12:51,820 --> 01:12:53,100
happy to continue the dialogue.

924
01:12:53,960 --> 01:12:54,460
So thanks.

925
01:12:54,640 --> 01:12:55,400
Thank you very much.