I am a member of both Mossy Earth and Planet Wild as I like both organisations’ approach to conservation and rewilding; using donations from members to create meaningful change in the world of wildlife and nature preservation. Mossy Earth do a lot of their own projects, and Planet Wild do monthly collaborations with larger initiatives to turbocharge or provide a specific boost to a particular operation. February’s mission was all about providing support for wildlife bridges across a vast area of North America, the Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y) corridor. Railways and motorways *sorry* railroads and highways crisscross this region and significantly limit the movement of any animal that needs to traverse this part of the country, from bears to butterflies. This impacts populations both literally due to collisions, and genetically due to isolation. Even considering a wholly human point of view, road and rail accidents cause injury and delays and the financial and time cost of these run into the billions, so the bridges and tunnels, although expensive to construct, pay for themselves in a number of years.
There are lots of different types of road and rail crossings, so not only underpasses to overpasses, but also watery or wetland channels for fish and amphibians, as well as specific salamander routes. Multi-purpose fencing funnels the wildlife down either side of the problem area to the safe passage, and scientists monitor the use to ensure the animals using the crossing are doing so in a safe and natural manner.
We only have a couple of wildlife crossings here in the UK but 3 more are planned by 2027. The Netherlands is the champion, but they are becoming increasingly common in Europe due the reasons mentioned above.
With this in mind I thought I would finish the last double page of my sketchbook with a gouache scribble, using my Ladybird book of British Wild Animals for reference and the paint I had left over in my palette. I might refine this into an actual poster at some point so it was helpful to get some rough ideas down.
