A new bridge over Route 97 in Siskiyou County is already drawing wildlife, even before the last pieces are finished.
The crossing and its fencing are the first wildlife crossing built over a major highway in California. The project is aimed at improving driver safety and cutting deaths of migrating mule deer, elk and other species.
“This is our first over-crossing laboratory in California,” said Fraser Shilling, director of the Road Ecology Center at the University of California, Davis. “It gives us a structure to learn how to make them better.”
In recent days, a camera trap captured three mule deer using the structure for the first time.
“While the contractor is still completing final touches, it’s incredible to see wildlife already embracing the new structure, even with workers still in the area,” Caltrans District 2 posted on Facebook. “In addition to deer, a bobcat and other wildlife have also been spotted using it.”
Shilling said the bridge itself is complete and ready to use. The only work left is final touches on nearby fencing, which is meant to funnel wildlife toward the crossing.
“Wildlife crossings by themselves do not stop roadkill,” Shilling said in an interview. “It’s the fencing associated with them that stops roadkill.”
A 2024 report co-authored by Shilling for the Road Ecology Center described vehicle crashes with wildlife as “a damaging and preventable natural disaster” that harms animals and drivers.
According to the report, California drivers kill nearly 50,000 mule deer each year, about 10 percent of the state’s deer herd. The report also said nearly 100 mountain lions die every year in car crashes, along with thousands of other animals from many species.
At the Route 97 crossing site, 50 deer and 16 elk died from 2015 to 2020, according to Caltrans.
More wildlife crossings are set to open soon. The Wallis Annenberg wildlife crossing in Southern California is scheduled to open at the end of the year and, when it does, it will be the world’s largest. The bridge stretches across the 10-lane 101 Freeway.
Shilling praised Caltrans for using its own funds to build the Route 97 crossing.
“They’re heroic,” Shilling said of the Caltrans staff. “Within agencies like that, doing anything different means you’ve got big ovaries.”
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