Animals need bridges, too, photos show

Who knew they were there in such numbers and variety — black bears, elk, deer, bobcats and cougars ambling around while traffic on I-90 roared on by?

Those animals and others all made their candid-camera debut this month, thanks to the Cascade Citizen Wildlife Monitoring Project. Volunteers, working with the help of scientists, placed seven remote cameras in a 15-mile-long corridor along Interstate 90 from Hyak to Easton, among other locations, last spring. And the first pictures from the 2008 monitoring season are back.

The photos are a window into a largely unseen world: Just alongside a busy highway of vehicles travels a highway of animals of every sort. "They put a face to the landscape," said Jen Watkins of the I-90 Wildlife Bridges Coalition, a nonprofit that worked to secure animal crossings as part of the I-90 Snoqualmie Pass East Project now under way at the state Department of Transportation (DOT).

The photos make real the constituents for the crossings: animals of every sort, from minks to otters, bobcats, bears, elk and more that must range widely over terrain on both sides of the highway to find food, mates and shelter, and establish territory. Today they are cut off from home ranges and migratory routes there long before the highway, dooming many species to long-term decline.

A total of 24 wildlife crossings in 14 locations along the project corridor will restore animals' ability to roam and benefit from years of land swaps and conservation purchases protecting wide swaths of wild country to which the freeway is the last barrier.

The crossings are not frills or minor doodads: They are major structures, fully integrated into the highway-expansion project, including three bridges just for animals near Keechelus Dam and at Easton Hill. Each is 150 feet across, to span six lanes of interstate highway.

By connecting major public land holdings north and south of the highway, including several wilderness and national-forest areas, entire functions of the natural world are hoped to come back into balance and health, such as predator-prey relationships.

The project also allows water to move more naturally across the land, by elevating the highway above stream crossings, and by installing oversized culverts to maintain and protect wetlands and stream banks.

"It is one of the most novel and progressive highway-mitigation projects probably in the world," said Tony Clevenger, of the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University, who helped do some of the planning for the project. "It's much broader than just reducing collisions with wildlife. There is terrestrial connectivity for everything from snails and slugs all the up to black bear and lynx."

The crossings will also improve driver safety.

The DOT documented 28 road kills in the area of the I-90 project since May 2007, mostly mule deer and elk — serious highway-safety threats.

One of the worst single-car accidents in state history was caused when the car hit an elk crossing I-90 near North Bend, in June 2004. Four people were killed, a fifth critically injured. The elk was also killed.

The range of different crossing sizes and designs throughout the corridor is intended to meet the needs of a variety of animals.

Overpasses attract animals that demand open habitats with good visibility, such as deer and elk. Undercrossings provide safe passage for animals that prefer more sheltered habitats, such as cougars and bears. A Noah's ark of smaller animals is expected to use the crossings as well, from otters to minks, chipmunks, shrews and voles. Undercrossings and oversized culverts will benefit amphibians and fish.

There are plenty of other animal crossing projects elsewhere, notably in Banff, B.C., and on Montana's I-93. But no other crossing project is tackling a six-lane interstate.

The first phase of the I-90 project, from Hyak to Keechelus Dam, is already funded, with $545 million from the state. It includes widening the highway to six lanes, a new snowshed for avalanche protection, a longer chain-up area, and wildlife undercrossings at Gold Creek. In the first phase, the department will also stabilize rock slopes, replace deteriorated concrete pavement and tame sharp curves.

The coalition and other conservation groups are also seeking money for the first overpass crossing, called Rock Knob — currently not funded — through the federal economic-stimulus package expected to be taken up by Congress. The total cost of the $35 million contract includes $15 million for the overpass, replacing deteriorated pavement and adding a lane for one mile each way at the end of the lake.

The push for the I-90 project has brought together an unusual community of supporters, from potato producers wanting to get their spuds more quickly to market, to the Sierra Club.

"Here we have environmental groups going out to get money to build a six-lane freeway," said Charlie Raines of the Cascade Chapter of the Sierra Club, "because it will make it better than it is right now for wildlife."

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com