WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – A new grant program is trying to tackle dangerous crashes with animals, which kill around 200 people in the U.S. annually. Now the Department of Transportation is giving millions of dollars to wildlife crossing projects.
Each year in the U.S. there are more than a million crashes involving wildlife, with sometimes deadly outcomes for both animals and people.
“We have an opportunity to do something about it,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said.
The Transportation Department recently announced it’s giving $110 million in grants to 19 wildlife crossing projects across the country. The program is the first of its kind and Secretary Pete Buttigieg says it will save lives and boost conservation efforts.
“It’s the right thing to do for conservation and for habitats and wildlife, but it’s also the right thing to do for drivers and their kids,” Buttigieg said.
Jeremy Romero with the National Wildlife Federation says as the amount of daily traffic in the U.S. grows, the danger of animal related crashes is growing too.
“The need for this funding and the need to be able to do these projects in many states across our country is at an all-time high,” Romero said.
Some of the grant money will go towards mapping out areas where the crashes commonly occur, and some will go towards construction of wildlife overpasses, underpasses or fences.
“No two projects are essentially the same,” Romero said. “It all depends what those collisions you’re trying to mitigate are.”
He says the projects can be complex and expensive, but he argues so is not addressing the problem.
“Some figures out there have it over $8 billion the cost associated with wildlife vehicle collisions,” Romero said.
Leaders say this money will be put to good use.
“Some of these projects have success rates upwards of 90% in reducing wildlife vehicle collisions, so that’s really amazing,” Romero said.
This is just the first round of grants. The program is set to give out more funding to other projects over the next few years.
