Research Results and Mitigation Strategies to Improve Wildlife Connectivity and Human Safety along I-40 in the Pigeon River Gorge
Roads are now recognized as one of the most important and lethal barriers to wildlife movement around the world. In the mountainous region at the border of Tennessee and North Carolina, Interstate 40 winds through the steep and rocky Pigeon River Gorge. The busy highway divides Great Smoky Mountains National Park from the Pisgah and Cherokee National Forests to the northeast. These protected areas are home to a growing and dispersing elk population, a large and robust black bear population, numerous white-tailed deer, and diverse species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and other taxa. The burden imposed by I-40 on wildlife habitat connectivity and transportation safety makes the Pigeon River Gorge a national priority site for mitigating wildlife-vehicle collisions. To address these concerns, we conducted multifaceted field research along I-40 to meet a variety of objectives for our target species of black bear, elk, and white-tailed deer.
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