Deer,skunks, cats use wildlife underpass

Do animals use the wildlife underpasses? Yes, they do according to Wayne Wakkinen, Idaho Fish & Game Biologist.

Remote cameras are installed in the wildlife tunnels under Highway 95 north of the Highway 1 junction. Movement in the tunnel triggers the camera to take a photo.

Since the cameras were installed in 2004, 779 animals have been recorded on camera. The number may be higher since the camera only takes one photo every minute. Therefore, not all animals traveling together may be photographed.

Fourteen different animals have used the tunnels. The most frequent is the whitetail deer with 597 uses. The next most frequent users are hares at 62, coyotes at 29, domestic cats at 19, elk and raccoons at 15, and black bears at 14.

Other animals with fewer than 10 uses included bobcats, domestic dogs, moose, packrats, skunks, squirrels and swallows.

“There were no grizzly bears, no mountain lions and no wolves,” said Wakkinen. “And people use has dropped off.”

The southern underpass is utilized the most at 545 uses while the northern tunnel is utilized the least at 67 uses. The middle tunnel had 167 uses.

Wakkinen was able to analyze the times the white-tail deer utilized the tunnels because the photos are time-stamped. The deer utilize the underpasses the most in the morning and evening and less during the day, which corresponds to when deer are most active.

In other wildlife research, Wakkinen determined that the highway through Round Prairie does not act as a genetic or physical barrier to black or grizzly bears. DNA analysis from 197 black bears in the area determined there was movement across the highway. At least three black bears are crossing the highway each generation to breed.

As for the highway being a physical barrier, half of 34 radio-collared black bears crossed the highway at least once before their collar dropped off. Two of three radio-collared grizzly bears crossed the highway also.

The highway is the home-range boundary for many of the radio-collared black bears.

Wakkinen posed the question, “Is it the highway creating the boundary effect or is the habitat creating the effect or both?” Since the highway follows topographic features such as Round Prairie and the Moyie River, that might be natural barriers, it is hard to distinguish between the two.

However, one black bear near Robinson Lake ignored the highway completely and crossed it 14 times before its collar dropped off.