Wildlife Crossing Videos

The videos on this page were taken as part of the Banff Wildlife Crossing Project which studies how wildlife uses 22 wildlife underpasses and 2 wildlife overpasses along the Trans-Canadian Highway (TCH) in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. The wire in the video is used to snag hair samples to collect DNA from the wildlife as they use the crossings and does not harm them. Since data collection began, the track pads have shown that large mammals have used Banff's 24 crossings more than 84,000 times as of January 2007.

The research suggests that the animals experience a learning curve – they need time to locate the wildlife crossings and to feel secure using the structures before crossing regularly. For example, grizzly bear crossings have increased from 7 in 1996 to more than 100 in 2006. Long-term monitoring demonstrates that the mitigation measures have reduced the traffic-related mortality of all large mammals on the TCH by more than 80 percent.

For more information, please visit the Western Transportation Institute's Road Ecology Program.

grizzly bears	black bears
mountain lions	elk
deer