Talking Michigan Transportation

How a federal grant could lead to safer wildlife crossings in Michigan

• Michigan Department of Transportation • Season 6 • Episode 195

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On this week’s edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, a follow-up to the previous episode highlighting efforts to protect people and animals with creative wildlife crossings on roads.

Amanda Novak, a resource specialist in the Michigan Department of Transportation’s Bay Region, helped spearhead the grant application and explains the importance.

As laid out in the project abstract for the grant, the number of wildlife vehicle collisions (WVCs) in Michigan continues to increase annually, worsening risks and costs to drivers. For example, white-tailed deer alone account for more than 55,000 WVCs and cost motorists an average of $130 million per year in Michigan. Additionally, WVCs are a major threat to many wildlife populations in the state, including documented impacts on several threatened and endangered species. Projected increases in tourism, housing development and climate change effects are likely to exacerbate WVC effects on motorists and wildlife in Michigan.

Podcast photo courtesy of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Jeff Cranson:

Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast. I'm your host, jeff Cranston. This week I'll be speaking with Amanda Novak, who is a resource specialist at the department. It's a repeat appearance for Amanda. She spoke to us a couple years ago for a special Earth Day edition of the podcast about various things that she's done with plantings, including sunflowers and other fauna, to help the ecosystem and also beautify the roadways.

Jeff Cranson:

This time we're following up on a conversation last week with Tim Johnson, who's a landscape connection specialist with the Yellowstone to Yukon initiative. He talked to us from Alberta, canada, about success they've had with wildlife crossings, tunnels, overpasses and things to protect elk and mule, deer and grizzlies and other species. Amanda is going to talk about a grant that she has applied for on behalf of MDOT to try to do some creative things, or at least look into creative things that could be done for various species that are often the victims of run-ins with vehicles on our roadways, and also talk about why it's important to do this, because it also protects the drivers. So I hope you enjoy the conversation. I really appreciate you taking time to talk again.

Amanda Novak:

Thank you for inviting me again.

Jeff Cranson:

So I talked last week, as you know, with Tim Johnson, who is a landscape connection specialist with Y2Y, which is the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative. He had some fascinating things to say about creative efforts they've used and some successes they've had in kind of corralling various big species big species, elk, mule, deer, grizzlies to save crossings on the highways there in the states that go from Wyoming all the way north to the Yukon. He's based in Alberta, so we're not necessarily talking about the same animals, although we do have elk in Michigan and obviously we have moose and we have black bear. Let's talk about the grant that you're seeking and how this kind of fits in with your overall mission and passion as a resource specialist.

Amanda Novak:

All right. Well, mdot and MDNR recently wrote a grant application together, and it's for the USDOT's Wildlife Crossing Pilot Program, so it's a planning grant. It is a non-construction grant and it's titled Michigan Vehicle Collision Hotspot Analysis for Planning of Future Wildlife Crossings. And so the intention of the grant is just to look at Michigan roadways and where the highest probability of crash locations is, and it varies by species but is broken up into two parts. So one part are the larger animals that pose a risk to motorist safety, and then the second part is really looking at more of a species conservation approach, and so we selected some species that struggle with crossing Michigan roadways.

Jeff Cranson:

So I think, first and foremost, people think of white-tailed deer. That's the most common. I know people who have only recently had run-ins with white-tailed deer on the roadways and, as you know, we're recording this as we start to get into fall, and that's when these are more prevalent, especially in the early mornings and later evenings. I think it's important to set expectations expectations and I know you're very, very sensitive to this that there's not much that we're really going to do to make it safer for white-tailed deer to cross at the myriad places that they cross our roadways across this huge state. But I mean, what would be your measure of success on that front?

Amanda Novak:

I think we recognize we're not going to, like you said, solve this problem entirely. I think there's a whole host of issues, especially when we start looking at our M routes. It would be very difficult to even fence long sections of M routes due to right-of-way types and that kind of thing. But this is more of a reduction. The idea is to reduce these locations where we have the highest number of crashes and hopefully, like our western states have done as our western DOTs, is to funnel them to where we would prefer them to cross.

Jeff Cranson:

Right, right, that's the hope, and you know I should mention here that my contacts at the DNR have data that shows and I'm sure you're attuned to this too that there's been a decline in people hunting and that contributes to a greater whitetail deer population.

Amanda Novak:

It definitely does. So I'm not ranked fourth in the country right now for collisions with deer.

Jeff Cranson:

I guess Michigan does in general yeah a lot of those are on county roads.

Amanda Novak:

Yes, we average 55,000 deer hits per year, which is so significant, and those are just the collisions that are actually reported. As you know, many collisions don't get reported, so that's a significant cost to our motorists.

Jeff Cranson:

Yeah, absolutely Both money. And you know, obviously it can cause physical harm to the driver and passengers too. Well, I think that elk, moose, black bear, wild turkey, pine marten, eastern massasauga, rattlesnake, blanding's turtle I wondered about, well, two things. I want to talk about the rattlesnakes in a minute because, even though they've been threatened for a long time, an MDOT has been very progressive in efforts to protect their habitat when building or rebuilding.

Amanda Novak:

But why is only the Blanding's turtle on here when we have so many different species of turtles? We selected the Blanding's turtle because it's a typical road crosser. It really crosses frequently. But I did want to add and that's a great question, a great point as we progress. So we selected those as our initial species to study. But I think, as this progresses, if we were to get the grant funding, we could expand those species and we would likely include some additional turtles.

Jeff Cranson:

Okay, so do you have any idea and maybe this is getting into a wildlife biology realm that you're not as steeped in? But why do the Blandings cross more? Is it just they're just more migratory?

Amanda Novak:

I'm actually not sure. From what I've seen, the turtles typically cross the road because they're crossing to their nesting habitat. Crossing to their nesting habitat and from speaking with our wildlife ecologist here at UMDOT, he said that once they cross and they have the place that they typically nest, they will figure out a way to get there again the next year. So they're very driven to get returned to their nesting grounds.

Jeff Cranson:

I thought you were going to say to get to the other side.

Amanda Novak:

That too.

Jeff Cranson:

Well, let's talk a little bit about the Massasauga rattlesnake, because you know I'm familiar with this, but I'll bet you a lot of people aren't.

Amanda Novak:

Yeah, the Massasauga rattlesnake. That was a species selected between both departments, so we both have an interest in protecting this species. As you mentioned, it's threatened. Mdot does a lot of work towards making sure we don't hurt the snakes in our construction projects. A lot of folks probably don't know, but we have snake walker training is what they call it, and the resource specialists are supposed to walk the silt fence prior to a project start and relocate any snakes that were accidentally trapped within the project limits, and then our staff is supposed to do that periodically throughout the project. We also use wildlife-friendly erosion control products and things where snakes can't entangle themselves, and so we're constantly planning for encountering them in our projects. In addition to that, though, we have done a study, which was recently completed by MSU, to study how they're utilizing the right-of-way and where they're at in the right-of-way.

Jeff Cranson:

We'll be right back, stay tuned.

Speaker 1:

In Michigan. Safety comes first on the roads. To combat distracted driving, Michigan passed the hands-free law. The law makes holding or manually using a cell phone or other mobile electronic device while operating a vehicle a primary offense. This means an officer can stop and ticket you for violating the law.

Speaker 4:

This can include, but not limited to, sending or receiving a call, sending, receiving or reading a text or email, accessing, reading or posting to social media sites or entering locations into the phone GPS.

Jeff Cranson:

With this law in place, drivers are encouraged to stay focused, keeping their hands on the wheel and their attention on the road. Drive smart, drive safe, drive hands-free.

Speaker 1:

Michigan's hands-free law.

Jeff Cranson:

Drive hands-free Michigan's hands-free law, making the road safer for everyone. What do you say when you're talking to you know, friends and family on a weekend about what you do, and you tell them this and they say well, why do we care about that rattlesnake?

Amanda Novak:

Well, it's part of the bigger picture and that's what I hope folks see. This is an ecosystem view, a big picture view, and so you're talking about species that all interact with other species and they need each other, and so it's our responsibility to make sure that we're getting people where they want to go. We're building our projects, but we're doing it in an environmentally sensitive way and accounting for other living things that fit into our ecosystem as well.

Jeff Cranson:

Yeah, well said. I think you explained that well. So in the suite of wildlife species identified through the project and I just listed them all Mastisagua is the only one that's listed by the state and the federal government as threatened. Several of the others are stable. Moose are special concern, swordblings, turtles Talk about the pine marten a little bit. What puts that on the list?

Amanda Novak:

That is a DNR selected species, so they were reintroduced to the Lower Peninsula and, as a result, they struggle a lot with habitat fragmentation, which further leads to genetic isolation. So it's really critical that we keep their habitats connected. They are an important part of our tribal partners' communities, of our tribal partners communities. They're harvested fur bearers and they're a featured species for DNR, so that's why they're included. I actually had to ask that too, because from a transportation standpoint, that wasn't something we had typically focused on.

Jeff Cranson:

You have much familiarity with them and like size or anything. I mean, are they like the size of a bobcat or bigger, smaller?

Amanda Novak:

I think they're smaller. Yeah, I don't have a lot of a lot of experience with them.

Jeff Cranson:

Well, maybe you'll learn more as this goes on.

Amanda Novak:

I will yes.

Jeff Cranson:

Well, talk about how this this I mean obviously you're you're very inspired by your work, you care a lot about it and you take a lot of satisfaction in doing what you do. You've done a lot with plantings, flowers, sunflowers, other flowers. How does this all tie together?

Amanda Novak:

I think there's similar concepts and ideas. We have threatened and endangered species, we have pollinator declines. It's just improving their habitats, connecting their habitats. And then I mean from somebody who's hit several deer in my lifetime and also one big turkey, you know, reducing wildlife, vehicle collisions and the safety component and also just the cost of it, is a driving force for me.

Jeff Cranson:

You say you had several deer. Where did you grow up? I mean you're based now in the Bay region, so Saginaw Bay City area.

Amanda Novak:

Yes.

Jeff Cranson:

Midland County. Okay, so a lot of deer in Midland County.

Jeff Cranson:

Yes, not far from my house either, adair and Midland County yes, not far from my house either. How about that? Yeah Well, talk just a little bit more, if you can, about what your fervent hope would be. You get the grant and then you know what are the steps after that. And I shouldn't, you know, maybe be too optimistic, but I tend to think, based on what USDOT has done, to prioritize this as an issue across the country, and knowing that you and the team put together a good application, including the folks at DNR, you know, it seems like it's got a reasonable chance. So talk about what happens if you get it.

Amanda Novak:

Well, if we get it, this is really the critical first step for Michigan. We're really in the emphasis stage of this. So without this data, we have no starting point. So once we do the hotspot analysis, there'll be a lot of steps that are included in that, including a public outreach portion where we talk about these hotspot locations, potential mitigation options, and we really engage the public in that part of it. And then from there I am hoping that we integrate this into kind of our long-range planning goals. We start making considerations early in our design phases, scoping, you know, starting to include some of these locations to maybe mitigate for these things as our projects develop, and maybe standalone funding someday engaging outside partners. That would be the long-term goal.

Jeff Cranson:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's exciting and you know I'm sure you're excited about the prospect of taking this a step farther. Do you run into people who are skeptical sometimes about this and you know the time and resources that are spent on this. Do you find yourself, you know, having to defend it, or does that really not happen often?

Amanda Novak:

I think what's interesting, if you talk to folks, they're usually pretty excited about this. We get approached often with folks who have research ideas or really want to see this push forward, but nobody really knows how to get the momentum to do it. There are some folks that are discouraged by the thought of you know, spending transportation dollars on an effort like this, but overall I think the public feedback is pretty positive.

Jeff Cranson:

Well, you know, something I talked about with Tim Johnson in Canada last week is how this factors into. You know the dangers to the driving public and the cost and you touched on that with white-tailed deer, but it's not just white-tailed deer, some of these other species people might swerve to avoid them. Or you know there's a cost in cleanup and maintenance that goes to all the road agencies, whether it's MDOT or a county. So I mean, is that part of the argument that you make to them that, look, this isn't just about protecting the animals, it's about protecting us too.

Amanda Novak:

Yes, I definitely like to touch on that. We have one location in particular we've been kind of monitoring and trying to fight the battle all year which is US 127 at the Maple River flooding. We had over 150 turtles killed on 127 this year and actually coming with that, motorists were pulling off the road, they were moving turtles, they were swerving into each other, they were setting up makeshift lane closures. So, yes, there's definitely a public safety component that goes to putting up turtle fence.

Jeff Cranson:

Yeah, I actually saw somebody doing that on 115 northwest of Cadillac recently and they were pulled pretty safely off the shoulder, but still they're trying to, you know, save a turtle when cars are flying by at pretty high speeds.

Amanda Novak:

So yes, um, yes, it was incredible. And then DNR was out there all the time trying to either move the turtles or, you know, move their remains. Some of them were quite large.

Jeff Cranson:

So, yes, um, so these weren't just blandings. These were a variety of species.

Amanda Novak:

They were a variety of species. They said that there were a lot of very, very large snapping turtles, which can be difficult to run over as well, based on the sizes.

Jeff Cranson:

Well, yeah, that and the mass of the shell, for sure, that and the mass of the shell, for sure. Well, amanda, is there anything?

Amanda Novak:

else you want to say about the grant and the program, and you know the work you do and hope to do with the help of the federal government. I think I just want to highlight how amazing it's been to partner with DNR on this. It has been crazy to look at what the two agencies can accomplish when they're together, so I think that's been really great and I want to extend a thanks to them for co-authoring the grant application with us. We could not have done it without their support and all the information they provided to us and, yeah, hopefully I'll get to talk to you again if we get the grant award.

Jeff Cranson:

Yeah, absolutely, and yeah, it's certainly justified some credit to the folks at the DNR who are also passionate about this and care a lot about these animals and, you know, about our ecosystem overall. So, yeah, Well, thanks Amanda. We will talk again when the grant comes through and you have some you know some updates to offer.

Amanda Novak:

I like your optimism. Thank you, Jeff.

Jeff Cranson:

I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation. You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or Buzzsprout. I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Devler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, Courtney Bates, who posts the podcast to various platforms, and Jackie Salinas, who transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.