Road Ecology Center

Florida’s population growth and tourism have created a demand for highway improvements that can seriously impact important habitat resources and fish and wildlife populations. This paper presents results of a cooperative effort by our agency in prioritizing the importance ranking of black bear roadkill areas for use by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) in siting wildlife underpasses on a statewide basis, and for impact avoidance and mitigation. Our agency documented 729 known locations of black bear roadkills in Florida from 1976 through 1999. A GIS analysis revealed that approximately 34 percent of the roadkills were clustered at 15 chronic problem areas located in seven counties. We prioritized these problem areas by analyzing and evaluating the density, sex and age, and current history of bear roadkills. Landscape level habitat quality also was measured by creating a new statewide bear habitat map that represents a composite score for various GIS data layers depicting public lands, land cover types, habitat composition within large roadless areas, proximity to existing conservation areas, and habitat diversity. The roadkill problem area highway segments were digitized, and a 30-km-wide buffer zone was created and overlaid on the habitat map to determine a mean score. The values for the seven roadkill and habitat parameters were normalized and a total score was determined to compare and rank the 15 roadway segments. State Road 46 in Lake County was ranked as the highest priority in the state for the placement of a wildlife underpass, followed by SR-40 in Marion County in the Ocala National Forest, and US-98 in Jefferson County near the Aucilla River in North Florida’s Big Bend region.