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A Year of Wildlife Movement: Monitoring for Preconstruction of Fish Passage Barrier #994233 in Washington

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  • A Year of Wildlife Movement: Monitoring for Preconstruction of Fish Passage Barrier #994233 in Washington
Megan LaFever, Washington State Department of Transpiration, Habitat Connectivity Volunteer
Wildlife movement: connectivity, safety, across eco-tones
Multi-Media Session 2

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) is planning the removal and reconstruction of hundreds of fish passage barriers by the year 2030. During this fish passage work, enhancements that benefit terrestrial wildlife can be made to the new structures at little to no added cost. Beginning as a student and continuing as a volunteer, I’ve been working with WSDOT to identify and monitor pre-construction structures that could benefit from terrestrial wildlife enhancements when reconstruction occurs. One particular structure in northwest Washington, a 425-ft long box culvert, which we expected to support little to no wildlife movement, ended up surprising us. We’ve been documenting wildlife use of this very long, cramped structure for over a year, and this presentation will discuss what wildlife activity we’ve seen, what’s missing and how we believe the new structure will be vastly superior to the current one.

Crossings
Repels
Undulates
Bobcat
culvert

Header image courtesy of Martin Gradjean -- Air Traffic Network

ICOET 2025 — International Conference On Ecology and Transportation