Join us to learn about road ecology as Conservation Northwest sponsors an event hosted by Southern Rockies Ecosystem Alliance.

Goal: The purpose of the 2008 Washington Wildlife Crossings Field Course is to provide a constructive forum for sharing experiences and exploring new ideas, perspectives, and concepts leading to an expansion of the knowledgebase on issues involving wildlife crossings. The field course is designed to draw on the vast range of expertise from biologists, engineers, planners, and others engaged in creating successful wildlife crossings. Rather than providing an introduction to wildlife crossings, this advanced-level course seeks to tackle the more complex issues that transportation professionals face in the planning, design, funding and monitoring of wildlife crossing structures in an efficient and economic manner.

Attendees: The workshop is for planners, engineers, and biologists from resource and transportation agencies, municipalities, counties, non-profits, and foundations. We hope the course will facilitate communication and information sharing between these groups as well as build enthusiasm for wildlife crossings throughout western North America.

Course Planning and Logistics: The 2008 Washington Wildlife Crossings Field Course is a three-day course held June 2-4 in Hyak, Washington, along the I-90 Corridor – just 50 miles east of Seattle. The course location at Snoqualmie Pass – the site of a major planned transportation and wildlife crossings project on Interstate 90 – provides an exceptional opportunity to learn from a project currently underway. Using this project as a case study and the focus of a field trip on the second day, course participants will experience first-hand the hurdles as well as the achievements that have resulted in a comprehensive proposal to construct a suite of wildlife crossings along this stretch of interstate.

The course is limited to approximately 130 participants to maintain productive group discussions. To ensure representation from across western North America, including Canada, we encourage participation from all the western states and Canadian provinces.