The Pueblo of Santa Ana Department of Natural Resources hosted a wildlife corridor summit on Sept. 19, focusing on protecting both motorists and wildlife on roadways.
The event brought together wildlife biologists from across the country and tribal leaders to collaborate on strategies for preserving wildlife connectivity and reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions.
The summit, organized by the First Nations Development Institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, highlighted the importance of collaboration between tribes, government agencies and conservation organizations to protect wildlife and motorists. It was an informative meeting for the Santa Ana Pueblo community, including the tribal council, leadership, and members, which also welcomed participation from neighboring tribes such as the Cochiti and Santo Domingo pueblos.
Wildlife corridors allow animals to safely pass under or over roadways, reducing wildlife crashes and allowing for unrestricted animal movement.
“This isn’t about keeping animals off the road,” said Ricky Serna, Cabinet secretary for the New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT). “This is about giving them the opportunity to remain mobile across our lands and keep drivers safe all the while.”
The pueblo spans 141,000 acres, according to Glenn Harper, range and wildlife division manager for the Pueblo of Santa Ana. The land, Harper said, is home to species including elk, bears, mountain lions and mule deer, all requiring large home ranges. Increasingly, issues related to wildlife connectivity are impacting these populations.
The two roads that cut through the pueblo — Interstate 25, projected to see up to 50,000 vehicles daily, and U.S. Highway 550, with traffic levels reaching up to 25,000 vehicles a day — pose significant challenges for wildlife movement.
For example, pronghorn and wild turkeys were relocated back to pueblo land after highways caused issues with wildlife connectivity, Harper said.
The tribal council has now given its blessing to pursue funding for the relocation of bighorn sheep to the edge of Santa Ana Mesa. A population was relocated into the Jemez Mountains, and Harper said he thinks the bighorn sheep will help establish a bridge of connectivity between these areas.
In April 2023, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited the Pueblo of Santa Ana to announce a new Federal Highway Administration grant initiative — the wildlife crossing pilot program — offering $350 million in funding to states and tribal governments.
“Tribal communities like Santa Ana Pueblo have frankly been ahead of the rest of the country, and helped lead the rest of the country, in better understanding the importance of the relationship between human settlement and the ecology,” Buttigieg said, according to KUNM.
Harper said the Pueblo of Santa Ana has applied for a $6.53 million grant through the Wildlife Crossing Pilot Program, which requires a nonfederal cost match. The funding would support the estimated $8.7 million for the 26.6 miles of scoping and design for constructing wildlife overpasses and underpasses, with additional assistance from state and grant resources. If approved, the pueblo will also receive $819,000 from the New Mexico Match Fund to help fulfill the cost-sharing requirement.
In addition, the pueblo secured $1.37 million from a grant administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. This grant will support a large-scale landscape project, including the scoping and design of a section of the Highway 550 corridor.
“So when you cobble all these sources of money together, then we can come up with a total for the scoping and design of the entire corridor,” Harper said.
In 2022, New Mexico released the Wildlife Corridors Action Plan, which identified areas in urgent need of wildlife crossings. The plan highlights wildlife-vehicle collision hotspots that pose significant risks to travelers and uses ecological data to identify wildlife corridors that intersect roads.
The highest priority, U.S. 550 north of Cuba, was estimated to cost over $45 million.
During the Santa Ana summit, Serna said the second phase of the initial section north of Cuba will require an additional $33 million. There is $3.5 million currently allocated that will cover both phases of the design. By 2026, NMDOT expects the total construction cost to be around $40 million.
Several authors of the action plan spoke at the summit, including Patricia Cramer, founder and director of the Wildlife Connectivity Institute. With 20 years of experience, she has researched over 100 wildlife crossing structures and focuses on integrating wildlife concerns into transportation planning to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions and promote connectivity.
“Corridors are a human construct and a lot of times they’re hypotheses that we have about how wildlife move across the world,” Cramer said. “So we want to find ways to put in structures that keep wildlife moving.”
Wildlife crossing structures encompass both overpasses and underpasses. Underpasses typically include various culvert types, such as arched and concrete box culverts, while overpasses can be designed as traditional span bridges or prefabricated arch structures.
According to Cramer, ungulates, animals such as deer, elk and pronghorn tend to avoid culverts and prefer overpass bridges, while carnivores, such as bears and mountain lions are more likely to utilize culverts.
Other components of animal corridors include 8-foot-high fences designed to guide wildlife toward the overpasses and underpasses. Additionally, the corridor must feature escape ramps to provide animals that accidentally access the road with a safe way to exit the roadway.
According to Harper, Santa Ana is currently using cameras to monitor animal activity near roadways, with nine locations on Highway 550 and two on Interstate 25. These cameras detect approaching animals, revealing passage rates for species such as deer, elk, and pronghorn.
One of the monitored locations is the underpass of Interstate 25 near the Placitas/Bernalillo exit, which Buttigieg toured last year. This underpass allows Las Huertas Creek to flow beneath the highway. Harper said about a month after the secretary’s visit, they observed a mountain lion crossing at this site.
The data
Cramer’s research involved a thorough census of wildlife-related traffic safety data from all 50 states. The Midwest reported the highest average of 162,000 wildlife crashes annually, costing $3.8 billion, while the West, having the most animal crossing structures, averaged only 26,000 crashes with costs of $1.2 billion.
Nationally, 5% of vehicle crashes involve wildlife, but New Mexico’s rate is slightly lower, likely due to underreporting. NMDOT reports around 1,600 wildlife-related crashes each year, though Cramer said she thinks the actual number is higher due to factors such as unreported incidents by truck drivers and uninsured motorists.
Cramer’s 2019 findings indicated that the combined costs of injury, property damage and fatal crashes in New Mexico amounted to about $17 million annually, but using federal highway values, this figure increased to $37 million.
“This has cost the society of New Mexico a lot of money,” Cramer said.