Wildlife-related crashes are a growing problem on rural roads around the country. The accidents increased 50 percent from 1990 to 2004, based on the most recent federal data, according to the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University here.
The basic problem is that rural roads are being traveled by more and more people, many of them living in far-flung subdivisions. Each year, about 200 people are killed in as many as two million wildlife-related crashes at a cost of more than $8 billion, the institute estimated in a report prepared for the National Academies of Science.
The articles mostly discusses the toll on human lives, but does add:
The accidents can also take a toll on precarious wildlife populations. The report prepared for Congress found that vehicle collisions were a major source of mortality for 21 federally endangered or threatened species, like the red wolf, kit fox, Key deer and Florida panther.
Seven grizzlies were killed on Montana roads this year alone!
The U.S. Department of Transportation has more on the impacts of roads on wildlife, including fish populations:
We drive over culverts without even realizing there are streams underneath. Even if we can see a stream, we usually can't see the fish swimming in the water. Nonetheless, the impacts are real and serious. Anadromous fish - species that migrate from freshwater to saltwater and back to freshwater - are most severely affected by fish barriers. Most of the culverts we drive over today were built decades ago before we knew about the needs of these species.
One more reason to drive less and to leave great patches of land (and streams) roadless.
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