Why Banff’s wildlife crossings are saving grizzly bears, elk — and drivers

Wildlife crossings are a win for all 

In Canada’s Banff National Park, the Trans-Canada Highway 1 is a lifeline for people. It’s a busy route for commercial trucking, and a fast, beautiful route through the Canadian Rockies allowing for world-class travel and recreation in the mountains.

But for wildlife, it’s a dangerous barrier that fractures the environment they depend on to move, migrate, mate, and survive. 

As more people live near or transit through wild landscapes and wildlife habitat, the number of wildlife-vehicle collisions is on the rise. These accidents threaten driver safety and take a tremendous toll on wildlife populations, while roads sever the connected habitats that species need to survive. 

Since the 1990s, Banff has set a global standard for safer roads for wildlife and people, thanks to the number of and variation in wildlife crossing structures. 

Banff now has more than 40 wildlife overpasses and underpasses, paired with fencing, along 82 kilometers of Highway 1.

These crossings aren’t just concrete and steel, they’re carefully designed lifelines engineered to blend in with the natural landscapes, allowing more cautious or noise sensitive species such as grizzly bears to cross the highway.

Overpasses are wide and covered with vegetation to look and feel like natural habitat. Underpasses provide sheltered routes for species that prefer to stay hidden. 

Along this busy stretch of highway, these crossings have helped reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions by 80%, with elk and deer collisions dropping by 96%. With the world’s longest, year-round monitoring program and largest data set on wildlife mitigation, researchers have recorded more than 200,000 safe crossings by animals, including elk, deer, grizzly bears, wolves and wolverine.

Along this busy stretch of highway, these crossings have helped reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions by 80%, with elk and deer collisions dropping by 96%. With the world’s longest, year-round monitoring program and largest data set on wildlife mitigation, researchers have recorded more than 200,000 safe crossings by animals like elk, deer, grizzly bears, wolves and wolverines.

And the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y), Parks Canada, Indigenous partners, engineers, and scientists are ensuring even more wildlife crossings are implemented as highway infrastructure is upgraded.

As the volume of traffic grows on Highway 1, these projects are critical to keeping wildlife moving safely across the landscape. 

Every new structure being considered is informed by decades of wildlife monitoring data indicating which species prefer overpasses versus underpasses, how animals respond to fencing, and how crossings reconnect populations separated by busy roads. 

177 crossings, with more on the way

These crossings aren’t just saving the lives of individual animals; they’re protecting entire populations of species.

Wildlife needs room to roam, and species such as wolves and grizzly bears need vast, connected habitats to maintain healthy populations. Without safe crossings, barriers created by busy roads trap them in smaller, isolated pockets which weakens DNA due to limited diverse mating options. 

In Banff, crossings have restored vital ecological corridors. Grizzly bears now safely roam between mountain ranges. Elk herds migrate safely by using wildlife tunnels and bridges to cross the stressful highway.

Banff’s approach to maintaining ecological corridors through its system of wildlife crossings is an inspirational model for similar projects around the globe from U.S. interstates to highways in Asia.  

The Yellowstone to Yukon region stretches over 3,400 kilometers, linking the planet’s most intact mountain regions.

The wildlife crossings in Banff National Park along Highway 1 are just one important piece of Y2Y’s broader work to keep nature connected across this vast landscape.

More than 177 crossings, underpasses and fencing structures are now in place across the region linking vital land corridors between protected areas. 

When we invest in wildlife crossings, we’re building more than bridges and tunnels. We’re building a future where both people and wildlife can share the landscape in a way where both thrive. 

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