FRCC, CSU students partner with state to cross US 287 wildlife
Students at Front Range Community College and Colorado State University have been working on projects to ease the movement of wildlife in the Livermore Valley north of Fort Collins since 2020.
One of those projects, a safe wildlife crossing using an existing underpass, caught the attention of officials from the departments of transportation and parks and zoos. wildlife as they look for ways to reduce the number of vehicle accidents involving wildlife along US Highway 287 north of Fort Collins. .
It was the first of four safeways, using culverts and underpasses, that students have built on US 287 between Livermore and Virginia Dale, said Heather Dannahower, associate director of the technology program. of wildlife at Front Range Community College.
And its discovery by two state agencies led to a partnership that now has students directly involved in the work of Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Colorado Department of Transportation to create safe routes for wildlife in the area.
“We actually went after them after looking at what they were doing and what we were planning to do in the area, so it went away,” said Jared Fiel, a spokesman for the Colorado Department of Transportation. it makes sense to work together.
A CDOT safety analysis report released earlier this year found that a third – 103 of 309 – of all vehicle crashes from 2017 to 2021 occurred in the 30-mile stretch of US 287 between Ted’s Place, where Colorado Highway 14 that destroys Poudre Canyon. , and the Wyoming frontier involved wildlife.
After meeting with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Dannahower’s teams began looking for additional areas for safe wildlife crossings. They identified existing culverts and underpasses, entered CDOT data to see where wildlife was hit by vehicles and visited the sites, checking roads, scat and carcasses to find out what which animals cross the highway at each location. said Andrew Bubick, a Front Range student who graduated in December 2023 and now works for the state wildlife agency. They studied the footage captured by existing Colorado Parks and Wildlife cameras and installed additional cameras.
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A camera installed in a culvert box they became a safe way to cross Oct. 12 took pictures of mule deer and used them to get under US 287 the next day, Front Range student Veil Camacho said. They also captured images of elk and pronghorns, two of the species they designed the perimeter fence to allow, crossing under it, as well as mountain lions, bobcats, skunks and others, Camacho said.
Working with landowners with conservation areas, the students removed an existing barbed wire fence that had been placed to keep cattle in their pastures with straight, split posts. 15 inches from the wire connecting them. The gaps between the posts, usually 6 inches wide, are too small for horses and cattle to squeeze between them, but wide enough to allow elk, mule deer and pronghorns — three species that the trails It’s a migration that is separated by a highway – it’s detoured to be safe. to the other side, said Dannahower.
Other fences are sometimes built or replaced, he said, to help wildlife move from a seasonal area on one side of US 287 to a seasonal area on the other side of the buildings. safe crossing.
None of these projects would be possible, Dannahower and former CSU professor Rick Knight said, without the cooperation of private landowners.
Students in their classes have also worked together in recent years to build several “friendly fence” projects in the area, Camacho said. Students remove the top and bottom strands of 5- and 9-strand barbed wire and replace them with solid wire that allows elk and mule deer to jump over without being harmed by arrows and antlers. to go under without losing their protective cables. of fur on extended barbs. Cows and cows can’t jump high enough to go up, and they’re too big to slide under them, they stay cooped up in their pastures.
CSU’s Knight Department of Environmental Conservation consists of freshmen who meet the science requirements for business, arts and sciences and other non-science majors.
“The average American today grows up in the city, so they’re used to shopping malls and basketball courts and soccer fields,” Knight said. “We take them outside of nature and show them the skills to make these private lands wildlife-friendly. … They do good for nature, they do good for the country, and it really gives the students a sense of doing something good for the world.”
Colorado recently received $47 million in funding from the United States Department of Transportation through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for safety improvements along US 287 in Larimer and Boulder counties, according to an Oct. 21 from Sens. Michael Bennett and John Hickenlooper and US Rep. Joe Neguse. Part of that money will be used to improve wildlife crossings that students have already installed and build new ones, Fiel said.
There are also plans to add a wildlife crossing to the area to accommodate pronghorns and other species that are usually reluctant to use the underpasses, Fiel said.
The work itself is difficult, Camacho said: removing barbed wire and old fence posts, digging holes, mixing concrete and placing new poles.
But those are all skills, Camacho said, that will be important in the kind of work he hopes to do after earning an associate’s degree in the Front Range and transferring to CSU to pursue a bachelor’s degree in ecology and conservation. environment.
The relationships students make with partner organizations and other conservation organizations involved in fieldwork are even better, the students said. They work directly with engineers, game wardens and biologists from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, CDOT, US Forest Service, US Bureau of Land Management, representatives of The Nature Conservancy, Natural Resources Conservation Services, Wildland Restoration Volunteers and owners of private land.
“It really makes you connect, not just to what needs to happen for these animals to be able to move freely in their environment,” Bubick said. But also how to encourage future generations, future students, any such people to be interested in these conservation methods.
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, entertainment, sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com,x.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.
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