Wildlife

Roads and highways affect wildlife in many ways; both directly as roadkill, and indirectly via the degradation, fragmentation and loss of habitat. The United States has 4 million miles of roadways, on which an estimated one million vertebrates die every day.  

In addition to the direct impacts of vehicle collisions, roads have far-reaching impacts on wildlife and their habitat. Passing vehicles create noise and chemical pollution that reach far beyond the pavement. By altering the physical environment, roads and highways modify animal behavior. To avoid them, many species shift home ranges, change movement patterns and even reproductive and feeding behaviors. Perhaps the most pervasive, yet insidious impact of roads is providing access to natural areas and encouraging further development. As our cities and towns sprawl across the landscape, more and more wildlife habitat is forever lost to strip malls and parking lots.

View more information on the ecological effects of roads and highways.

While the presence of roads impacts all wildlife, certain species are more affected than others. In fact, some of our threatened and endangered species are further jeopardized by the hazards of highways. Defenders focuses on those species for which roads pose the greatest threat, either through roadkill or loss of habitat to roadways and sprawl.

The Road to Extinction: How Wildlife-Vehicle Mortality is Jeopardizing America’s Threatened and Endangered Species

Several endangered and threatened species are prone to roadkill, and each loss threatens the species viability with diminished genetic diversity and increasing isolation for survivors. Use the links below for more information on these species and how they are impacted by roads and highways.

More information on species impacted by roads and highways.