Designing for Wildlife Passage in an Increasingly Fragmented World

Habitat loss and fragmentation is the single largest threat to biodiversity conservation in an urban area.  As large contiguous habitats are quickly converted into smaller more isolated remnants the value of maintaining functioning ecological connections between patches increases significantly.  With the help of a multidisciplinary team, The City of Edmonton incorporated ecological infrastructure with human networks, creating the Wildlife Passage Engineering Design Guidelines (WPEDG), an educational publication that provides clear and accessible information on wildlife passage design. This eight year project has resulted in the design and/or construction of 27 wildlife passage structures, and a 51% reduction in wildlife collisions.