Identification of the Patterns and Processes that Result in Highway Accidents Involving Elk: Informing the Design of Effective Mitigation Strategies in Areas Where Elk is a Dominant Species

The objective of this project is to describe the patterns and processes that result in highway accidents involving elk, in order to provide transportation planners with the design of effective mitigation strategies in areas where elk is a dominant species.

Since the mid-1970s, collisions between vehicles and large herbivores on the major roads in Canada's mountain parks have been a concern for Parks Canada management. In response to increase collisions, Parks Canada initiated the construction of wildlife crossing structures and wildlife-exclusion fencing along the Trans Canada Highway (TCH) in the 1980s. These measures have been successful in reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs), but WVCs involving elk (EVCs) in unmitigated areas remain a problem. EVCs contribute to 27% of wildlife related accidents in the Central Canadian Rockies, and are expected to increase as traffic volumes increase. The objective of this project is to describe the patterns and processes that result in highway accidents involving elk, in order to provide transportation planners with the design of effective mitigation strategies in areas where elk is a dominant species. The research team will explore age and sex patterns in EVCs, demography and condition of elk that were killed, seasonality of EVCs, EVC rates, traffic volumes, elk abundance, and other data to identify patterns and characteristics of these collisions.