"What we need are for people to start giving a fuck."

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha that is never ever going to happen.

There's a problem with wildlife crossings: predators quickly figure out how they work and use them as fast food joints, which causes all the same problems for them as our fast food does for us. This is to say nothing of the fact that the crossings are still quite lethal for the prey species that use them.

I suspect that predator-poor Europe has less trouble with this phenomenon, but I don't know.

So many things wrong with this.

* the primary purpose of wildlife crossings is not preventing roadkill but preventing habitat segmentation. For every animal that gets run over, there are many more who refuse to cross, thus missing out on necessary areas for feeding, reproduction, etc.

* the effectiveness of wildlife crossings is not automatic, and depends on many factors, none of which this Ted Zoli appears to be aware of.

* Ted has no data to back up his claims.

* The US (and Canada) is in actual fact spending tons of money already constructing wildlife crossings all over the place, suggesting that Mr. Zoli's complaint is motivated by his own desire, perhaps, to step into that "political, economic and social leadership" himself, presumably with a comfortable salary. Or is he merely miffed that he's not getting the contracts?

* There are tons of very smart and talented people studying wildlife crossings, where to put them, what to make them out of, how to make them more effective, and so on. Five seconds on Google will reveal this. Ted Zoli's name doesn't seem to come up, possibly because he doesn't appear to be a part of the solution.

The real problem is getting the damned deer to stop jaywalking. I ask you, is it really that hard for them to press the button for the damn signal? Sheesh.

The effect of rail must be far greater.

One of those pithy quotes attached to a graphic on Facebook is probably not a good citation.

For every hunter that inflicts Darwinian justice with firearms, there are a hundred lazier hunters who prefer to cull the herd with their cars. This country loves distributing death.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-Fp7flAW…

@1: ...in America.

@8 That was great. Who'd want to run over a turtle?

darwinism

Bailo: please go be stupid somewhere else. The financial cost of wildlife strikes is in damage, injury, and deaths to motorists and their vehicles.

Trains, not so much. Locomotives, unlike the family Buick, are not even dented whe they strike wildlife.

@5 I'm not sure why you'd think so. From an economic perspective trains don't give a shit when they hit animals, even larger ones, while cars can be completely wrecked by larger animals and can veer into other vehicles to avoid smaller animals. From an ecological perspective the sheer width of major highways and the frequency of cars passing is exponentially greater then that of rail lines. Did you even think about what you were saying before you posted it?

@13: It isn't clear that Bailo tries very hard to think much at all.

If we had political, economic and social leadership, we'd vaccinate our kids. And give them a non-joke education. And health care.

And then fix the roadkill problem.

I never see any wildlife crossings in Scotland. But then, it's not exactly famous for its well-maintained roads and transport infrastructure.

Um, hello: The new Highway Bill that Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed last week includes provisions that encourage efforts to connect wildlife habitat and improve the saftey of drivers and critters. And new wildlife crossings are being built across I-90. We may get as good as Europe soon.

Granite Falls has two spiffy new wildlife crossings thanks to your friendly Public Works department.