Eric Ham knows firsthand the consequences for wildlife when existing roads get congested and new roads are built. Raised near Caribou, Ham often had to swerve from animals in the road that had no way to escape oncoming traffic.
“People truly adjust their lives around not driving in the morning or at dusk because of the larger animals,” said Ham, a senior environmental manager at the Maine Department of Transportation. “It’s a regular part of everyday life for people who live there.”
His job is to do something about high-strike areas where development and nature clash. The department recently won a federal grant to repair and enlarge two existing culverts in high-strike areas south of the downtown. The culverts already attract bears and foxes, but they aren’t large enough for deer and moose. The way they were built also blocks passage for some fish through the nearby stream.
From large passages under roads to small ones for turtles and snakes, Maine is quietly embracing methods long used in the western U.S. to divert animals around high-strike roads and areas reshaped by development. Not visible to drivers, there are at least six such passages built or planned here. So far, they seem to be minimizing animal fatalities, human injuries and vehicle damage.
“Anything that can keep wildlife off the roads that our people are using is very much appreciated,” said Penny Thompson, city manager of Caribou, which has about 7,400 people and recently got a federal grant to expand existing passages.
The chances of a U.S. driver hitting an animal this year are 1 in 128, according to State Farm, the largest car insurer in the country. In Maine, the odds are greater at 1 in 83, but the state doesn’t even rank in the top 10 nationwide for wildlife strikes. Deer are the most frequently hit animal in Maine, with Cumberland County leading in deer strikes. The vast majority of moose strikes are in Aroostook County.
While there are only two human fatalities with deer strikes and one with a moose from 2019 to 2023, the economic losses, including vehicle damage and bodily harm, were $943 million for deer and $235 million for moose during the five years, according to state estimates. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of animal strikes happen during daylight and clear weather.
Animals cross roads mainly for food and mating. The buildout of roads that fragment their environment makes it difficult and dangerous for them to move around, Jeff Gagnon, statewide research biologist for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, said at a recent conference for environmental reporters in his state.
The passages in the western U.S. tend to be built as overpasses across multi-lane highways. Culverts are most often used in New England. The first wildlife corridor in the United States was built in the 1970s in Utah. The National Caucus of Environmental Legislators found that wildlife crossings decrease collisions from 40 percent to 90 percent, depending on their location.
To see whether animals were using passages at one hotspot area for strikes, Gagnon monitored animals with GPS collars on three wildlife overpasses on Highway 93 near the Hoover Dam. About 6,000 bighorn sheep crossed the passages over a four-year period, making the passages a resounding success, he said.
Maine’s largest and earliest wildlife crossing opened in 2008 in Gorham. It saw a significant decrease in strikes after it built a bypass road and crossings, seeing only one collision in the three years after it went into use compared with 12 on a parallel road.
More than 40,000 vehicles traveled through Gorham village in the early 2000s on daily commutes to Portland. To move traffic away from the downtown, MaineDOT developed the Gorham Bypass, an extension of Route 112. However, the new road posed a new challenge. It passed through a formerly undeveloped area with wildlife that potentially could be hit when crossing the road.
The MaineDOT responded by creating wildlife passages under the new road for deer, turkeys, beavers, porcupines, salamanders and frogs. It constructed eight crossings, two of them near vernal pools that attracted amphibians and kept them off of the road. It built two 125-foot bridges over brooks. It placed small dams in pipes under Flaggy Meadow Road for fish passage in another brook. The department also constructed a half-mile fence along the road at each crossing to channel the animals to the passages.
“When we design new connectors or roadways we try to be really conscious of animal movement and not interrupting that with a new roadway,” Ham said.
In Caribou, Thompson, the city manager, has also seen a lot of wildlife during her 32 years there, perhaps none as amusing as the bears that come downtown to survey what food is within easy grasp. They will sometimes hang out in trees to see which people put their trash out.
But Thompson’s bigger worry is the two-mile stretch south of town, where deer and moose cross the highway, and where people and wildlife collide. Large trucks carrying harvested potatoes also frequent routes 1 and 164, where the most collisions occur.
The new, federally funded project also will remove barriers to fish passage in the existing culverts. The concrete culvert on Route 164 will have an open bottom and measure about 17 feet high to accommodate moose. The one on Route 1, which has far more vehicle and animal collisions, is expected to have a similar design.
The existing culverts impede passage for two rare fish, wild Atlantic salmon and wild brook trout, which swim in Prestile Brook, a tributary to the Aroostook River that flows under both routes. The crossing on Route 164 is expected to be completed by April 2027 and the Route 1 passage by November 2029.
A lot of science goes into investigating what types of structures a specific species might use, said Justin Schlawin, program coordinator at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, which advises MaineDOT about the crossings.
Turtles posed a unique challenge because they typically move on the ground, but they sense danger in dark tunnels and won’t use them, he said. Route 236 in Eliot is a hot spot for turtle collisions, especially the endangered Blanding’s turtle, which fits into the palm of a person’s hand.
Dozens were being killed by vehicles each year, Schlawin said. To encourage the turtles to walk through the crossing they constructed in 2021, they essentially built skylights into the culvert. The passage is the first one in Maine dedicated to turtles and reptiles.
So far, the department’s turtle specialist has not found any dead Blanding’s turtles, Schlawin said. That’s why it is important to gather information about what the animals might use before constructing the crossings and finding out they won’t use them.
“It’s not like ‘Field of Dreams,’” he said, referring to the famous movie line: “If you build it, they will come.”
Lori Valigra reports on the environment for the BDN’s Maine Focus investigative team. Reach her at [email protected]. Support for this reporting is provided by the Unity Foundation, a fund at the Maine Community Foundation and donations by BDN readers.
