The federal grants aim to make US-93 and Interstate 90 safer for wildlife and motorists.
By Amanda Eggert MONTANA FREE PRESS
Montana is set to receive about $9 million in federal funding to mitigate wildlife-vehicle collisions on the state’s busiest interstate and one of its busiest highways.
The Federal Highway Administration announced last week that Montana will receive a portion of a $110 million allocation geared toward making the country’s roadways safer for motorists and wildlife. This is the first round of funding for the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program, which was included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Congress passed in 2021. Four more funding cycles will follow.
The bulk of Montana’s allocation was awarded to a project aiming to reduce grizzly deaths along a stretch of U.S. Highway 93 that runs through the Flathead Indian Reservation.
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes was the lead applicant on a wildlife overpass proposal that will be built in northwest Montana’s Ninepipe National Wildlife Management Area.
Whisper Camel-Means, who heads up CSKT’s Fish, Wildlife, Recreation and Conservation Division, said the proposal was designed with female grizzlies with cubs in mind. The tribe plans to use the $8.6 million FHA grant to construct an overpass along a section of US-93 that has proven especially deadly for grizzly bears, which are protected under the Endangered Species Act.
She said the tribes have documented six vehicle-related mortalities within a 1-mile zone of the project location since 1998. She said it’s a significant portion — about one-third — of all of the human-related grizzly deaths recorded within the reservation during that time.
“That’s why we do things like apply for this grant — we’re thinking about grizzly bears and trying to reduce mortalities so they can disperse across the landscape,” she said. “There are other animals that have been hit there, too — elk, and of course deer.”
Camel-Means added that one of CSKT’s tenets for fighting the impacts of climate change is maintaining and restoring habitat connectivity so that animals have an opportunity to move in the face of drought, wildfire and other natural disasters. Part of that, she said, is “providing permeability across the landscape.”
This is not the first foray into wildlife crossings for CSKT and the Montana Department of Transportation. In the early 2010s, they collaborated to build about 40 wildlife overpasses and underpasses along US-93 when it was widened to accommodate an increasing number of motorists.
Funding for the other Montana-based project will go directly to the MDT, which has received $420,000 to assess the feasibility of installing wildlife crossings along a 68-mile section of Interstate 90 between Missoula and Garrison to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions and better understand key wildlife migration corridors in that area.
In a press release announcing the 19 crossing projects approved for funding, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg noted the projects’ potential to “reduce collisions between driver and wildlife and save American lives.”
The release goes on to note that reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions also comes with positive economic benefits, including a reduction in property damage, medical bills and crash-related income loss.
According to an annual report prepared by insurance company State Farm, Montana ranked No. 2 for the likelihood that a driver will strike an animal. Earlier this year, the Montana Legislature declined to add $1 million to MDT’s budget for wildlife-vehicle crash mitigation.
This winter, MDT will evaluate submissions to a recently launched state program that seeks to identify wildlife-vehicle collision hotspots and Montana communities motivated to install new infrastructure or retrofit existing structures to make them safer and more wildlife-friendly.
