The impacts of roads on wildlife are extensive and can be especially harmful on U.S. National Forest lands where ecosystems are relatively intact. Access allowed by wildland roads can increase poaching, over-hunting, and over-trapping. Roads also increase negative edge effects, cause fragmentation, and facilitate or hinder wildlife movement. Forest Service managers are removing some roads to mitigate these impacts on wildlife, but few studies have addressed the effectiveness of this strategy.

In this study, we tested if wildlife were using decommissioned roads more than adjacent open roads. The study was conducted on the Clearwater National Forest in the Bitterroot Mountains of north-central Idaho where they have removed and revegetated more than 500 mi of roads. From May to October 2006 we monitored wildlife use on open and decommissioned roads using remotely-triggered cameras and baited track plates. Wildlife monitoring was part of a larger citizen monitoring program where a trained volunteer coordinator lead trips into the field each week to collect data on decommissioned roads. Using t-tests, we compared the number of detections and rates of detection between open and decommissioned roads.

Remotely-triggered cameras detected mammals at a higher rate on decommissioned roads than open roads for all species. However, on track plates there were about the same number of detections on open and decommissioned roads. Overall, we could not statistically distinguish the rate of detection between open and closed roads for white-tailed deer, elk, moose, and coyotes. Black bear, however, had a significantly higher rate of detection on removed roads than open roads (p<.01). This finding is consistent with several studies that have found that bears avoid open roads.

While the sample size was small, this study is the first to demonstrate with statistical significance that road decommissioning is restoring habitat for bears. This summer we will increase our sampling efforts to help reduce variability and test if the level of security influences rates of detection. More research is needed to fully understand the effects of road removal on wildlife and their habitat.

The 2002 National Cooperative Highway Research Project found a need among many state transportation departments for the development of “standard analytic techniques for assessing wildlife ecology and transportation.” These agencies use several methods to assess wildlife activity in areas of highway construction projects. However, there have been very few comparison studies of the different techniques and none have been conducted near a high traffic roadway. For this study, I am ascertaining the utility of various field methods to monitor wildlife near Interstate 70 at Vail Pass, Colorado.

Interstate 70 is a major east-west transportation route running through the Colorado Rockies. The associated human development that comes with this transportation corridor has resulted in varying degrees of habitat fragmentation across the region and represents a potentially significant barrier to wildlife movement. To alleviate this potential barrier effect, the Colorado Department of Transportation is proposing to build a wildlife bridge across I-70 just west of Vail Pass. The Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project (SREP) and other Colorado non-profit organizations are developing a monitoring strategy that will inform the placement of the wildlife bridge and determine baseline movement patterns and activity levels of various wildlife species before, during, and after the project. In order to gather a greater wealth of data with this strategy, a Citizen Science Wildlife Monitoring program was created in 2006 by these organizations.

My study is aimed at assessing which monitoring techniques are most effective at documenting species presence across this important wildlife linkage. In this study, “effective” is used to define any method: 1) that detects a mammal, and 2) by which the user is able to identify the mammal to the species level. This paper analyzes four sampling tech¬niques (remote sensing digital cameras, track transect surveys, scat transect surveys, and hair snare surveys) during baited and non-baited sampling sessions. Results from this study will be used by SREP to develop a cost-effective monitoring strategy for the Vail Pass region.

In July and August 2006, eight lines were placed perpendicular to a two-lane dirt road called Shrine Pass Road (SPR) which runs relatively parallel to I-70. Each line consisted of four plots; two directly on the roadway shoulder (roadway sites) and two 100-150m (328’-492’) from the road (approach sites). Each plot had a 100m (328’) long x 2m (6.6’) wide track and scat transect that ran as parallel as possible to SPR. At the midway point in each approach site transect, there was a hair snare station, a track bed and a camera station. The roadway sites only had a camera station at the midway point.

Two study sessions were completed. An unbaited study period ran for two weeks and included both roadway and approach stations. On day one of this session, data from all the stations and transects were collected and the survey areas were cleared. On the final day of this session, the stations and transects were again walked and all track, scat and camera data were collected. For the baited session, only the approach sites were used and the hair snares were baited with a non-rewarding scent lure. The stations and transects were sampled every day for ten consecutive days. The hair snares were re-baited every third day. All tracks, scat and hairs found were recorded and any scat and hair samples were collected. Any samples that could not be positively identified by species in the field were labeled “unknown.”

Preliminary results indicate that species detection varies greatly depending on the sampling method and whether a scent lure is present. Twelve different species were positively identified by the cameras, four by scat surveys and two by track surveys. No species could be positively identified using the hair snares without genetic analysis.

Interestingly, for deer and elk, preliminary analysis indicates that detections with track surveys were significantly greater than those with camera and scat surveys. In contrast, scat was a better indicator of American marten pres¬ence compared to most other techniques. In fact, preliminary results suggest that detections of marten with scat and camera surveys are significantly greater than detections with track surveys. No difference was found between scat and camera surveys. Overall, however, scat surveys were a fairly ineffective technique without genetic analysis as several scat samples were unidentifiable in the field.

Furthermore, it seems that the baited session was more effective than the non-baited session for monitoring wildlife. For instance, all twelve species identified at camera stations were recorded during the baited session whereas only six species were recorded during the non-baited period. Non-baited cameras did not detect certain rodent species, domestic dogs, gray fox, porcupine, and American marten. In addition, scat detections for marten were significantly higher for the baited session than for the unbaited session. Finally, activity indices were higher for domestic dog, mule deer, red and gray fox, mice, chipmunks and squirrels at the baited camera stations. Comparatively, during the non-baited session, the activity index was notably higher solely for rabbits.

These results will aid in assessing what sampling methods are most appropriate for certain species given time con¬straints, seasonal environmental conditions, and availability of funding for monitoring equipment. The results from the field study will be reinforced by additional research on each method to evaluate their effectiveness in other studies. In the end, this study will contribute to developing an appropriate long-term monitoring strategy for the Vail Pass linkage.

The Crowsnest Pass in southwestern Alberta, Canada has been highlighted as a critical area for wildlife movement. There are plans to upgrade Highway 3, which cuts through the Pass, to four lanes, with resulting increased traffic volume and speed. Currently, highway traffic volume is between 2,500 to 10,500 vehicles/day. Highway 3 may already be acting as a barrier to large carnivore and ungulate movements patterns, and wildlife mortality from animal/vehicle collisions on Highway 3 is approximately 109 large mammal deaths reported annually for a 46km stretch within the Pass. Detailed wildlife movement information in the Pass is limited.

To assist in understanding wildlife movement patterns along the highway to support decision-making for mitigation, a community based monitoring project was developed. The Alberta research institute Miistakis Institute of the Rockies created Road Watch in the Pass (RW), which allows local citizens to enter their wildlife observations along Highway 3 through an interactive web-based mapping tool. Over 1220 observations have been collected in over sixteen months, including 11 species of ungulates and carnivores.

This innovative approach to data collection would benefit from an analysis to determine whether the citizen reports are accurately representing visible wildlife activity along Highway 3. There are likely biases in citizen reports, based on unequal sampling effort involving location and frequency of travel. To identify and address these biases, this study compares spatial and temporal wildlife observation data from RW to a systematically gathered dataset using various statistical approaches.

We began systematic data collection in May 2006 and will continue through May 2007 to examine spatial and temporal characteristics of large mammal species movement (bighorn sheep, elk, moose, mule deer, white-tailed deer and carnivore species) along the highway. A 46-km stretch of Highway 3 was driven as a strip transect. When we observed an animal along or crossing the highway, UTM location, species, date, time, and other data were recorded. Each hour within the 24-hour period were sampled equally across a full year, allowing temporal analysis. Similar data from RW reports provided by citizens during the same period were extracted from the RW database. From May 2006 to March 2007, 395 transects were driven totaling over 395 hours of data collection and resulting in 681 wildlife observations. Spatial and temporal comparisons will be made between systematically gathered data and concurrent Road Watch data. Analysis will include examination of spatial association between the two data collection processes, comparison of spatial distribution, comparison of hourly and seasonal temporal distribution, effect of any biases on spatial or temporal distribution or species composition, and other analyses.

The Road Watch program is an important use of citizen involvement in transportation science. After analysis of RW’s accuracy in representing visible wildlife activity in the Crowsnest Pass, this study will provide suggestions and stipulations to improve the scientific rigor of this unique citizen-science program.

Road decommissioning is an increasingly important tool for restoring watersheds on national forest lands. Wildland roads can result in a number of negative impacts leading to decreased terrestrial and aquatic habitat quality. It is believed, therefore, that road decommissioning can have significant positive effects on a watershed—cleaner water, improved fisheries, and restored habitat for terrestrial animals. However, very little research has been conducted to quantify these benefits. In 1998, the Clearwater National Forest (CNF) and Nez Perce Tribe (NPT) began an intensive road decommissioning program after extensive flooding caused hundreds of landslides in 1995-1996. Since the program’s inception, more than 500 miles of roads have been decommissioned. Neither the CNF nor the NPT can sustain the budget and personnel necessary to monitor how effectively these projects are restoring fish and wildlife habitat. Data collected through a citizen monitoring program will fill this need. Citizen science is a popular and powerful way to monitor the long-term trends and conditions of natural systems while also encouraging a stewardship ethic for the resources being monitored. The information gathered by “citizen scientists” can help land managers make more informed decisions about how best to care for public and private land. We have created the first citizen monitoring program that focuses on the ecological recovery of decommissioned roads. We developed monitoring protocols for citizen scientists, recruited and trained volunteers, and led monitoring trips in the field every weekend during the summer and fall of 2005, engaging, thus far, some 20 volunteers. As this project is still in progress, all conclusions and findings reported are preliminary. We can, however, make general observations on the efficacy and accuracy of employing citizen scientists to measure ecosystem recovery as a result of road decommissioning. In addition, a second year of funding has been obtained for this project. We anticipate that next year’s program will be a success in forwarding our objectives for this project.