5 Incredible Bridges Built Especially For Animals

When wildlife stumbled on roads they often pay the ultimate cost. If the animal is large enough, it can kill the occupants of the car that hit it, and even smaller creatures can do plenty of financial damage.

It is estimated that a million animals are killed on U.S. roads every day. In the UK, wild deer are responsible for 74,000 accidents each year. The statistics are staggering, and super sad.

Sometimes there are ways to persuade animals to spend their lives on one side of a motorway, but often there are good reasons for them to cross.

This is where wildlife bridges and tunnels come in. However, as this video from MinuteEarth makes clear, getting the bridge just right is not easy. What suits one species is not applicable to another, and with millions of miles of roads, a lot of crossings are required….

No matter what bridge is provided, some animals will still venture onto the roadway. However, well-designed bridges can cut the toll enough to keep species alive, and save the bodywork on some cars while they are at it.

Nobody teaches moose pedestrian etiquette like “look both ways,” but they figure out pretty quickly that crossing the terrifying asphalt river is safer if you take the beautiful grassy bridge.

Let’s hope that these bridges help decrease the high roadkill statistics we’re currently seeing.