Utah Makes Noteworthy Investment in Wildlife Crossings
Yesterday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) officially signed off on a state budget that designates $20 million dollars for wildlife crossing projects across the state.
"This appropriation marks one of the largest investments a state has ever made in wildlife crossings. Especially given the high rates of wildlife-vehicle conflict this winter, the timing couldn't be better. With this money in hand, UDOT and UDWR will be able to make roads safer for wildlife and drivers,” said Michael Dax, Wildlands Network’s Western Program Director.
The funding, which was introduced by State Representative Doug Owens (D), a local champion for wildlife and innovative conservation policy, will allow the state of Utah to tap into over $350 million worth of federal discretionary grant funding that Wildlands Network helped secure in 2022.
The need for this dedicated funding was made clear by Wildlands Network and our local partners in Utah, including representatives from the Utah Wildlife Foundation, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and many other community organizations. We helped impress upon our elected leaders the need to install these structures to sustain connectivity between key habitat areas for wildlife to support long-term population health and helped elevate the personal stories of Utahns with first-hand experience of the tragedy and cost of wildlife-vehicle collisions.
Wildlands Network’s Executive Director, Katie Davis, testified before a legislative committee about the importance of this funding and made the case for its inclusion in the state budget in an op-ed in the Desert News.
As highlighted by the Pew Charitable Trusts, “nearly 5,000 deer and 1,000 elk are killed in vehicle collisions in Utah each year. A 2019 study estimates that these and other wildlife-vehicle accidents cost Utah taxpayers nearly $138 million in human injuries and deaths and damage to vehicles.”
Nic Callero, officer with Pew’s U.S. public lands and rivers conservation project, noted, “Each dollar spent on mitigating wildlife-vehicle collisions will return dividends in savings for taxpayers by reducing crashes and both human and animal injuries and deaths, and reconnecting fractured habitat. Wildlife crossings are a proven technology that save lives and money.”
Wildlands Network thanks Representative Owens, Majority Leader Mike Schultz, Governor Spencer Cox, the Utah Department of Transportation, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and all our local partners and supporters in Utah that made this funding possible. We look forward to working with all of them to implement aligned projects throughout the state in the coming years.
