As wildlife and fish crossings in highways and roads increase, the emphasis will change from defending their legitimacy to increasing their effectiveness. In the recent past, when wildlife and fisheries crossings were provided, it was often on the basis of “least cost.” Unfortunately, many of these structures did not meet the intended purposes – or did so marginally. Road and highway wildlife and fisheries crossings should be planned and designed for multiple species. By applying ecological and behavioral concepts the effectiveness of wildlife and fisheries crossing structures can be greatly improved. While more effective, these structures will also be more expensive. Factors such as the height, width, approach, bottom surface, lighting and spacing need careful consideration. Future structures should appear more natural to increase use and should be placed in areas that animals naturally use. Culverts in stream channels present potential problems to fish and wildlife passage. Their effectiveness in situations where wildlife and fish passage is important is limited, and other types of structures should likely be considered.

Many agencies are contemplating building wildlife crossings to reduce wildlife mortality, to improve habitat connectivity, and to reduce vehicle collisions. For this to occur without problems and interagency disagreements, relationships between agencies and key individuals must be well-developed. Once relationships are in-place highway improvements and wildlife habitat objectives are more easily integrated. The second step in coordinating wildlife issues with transportation is development of interagency statewide, regional or highway specific wildlife habitat linkage plans. These determine a number of critical factors necessary to locate wildlife crossings, prioritize opportunities and focus funding and personnel. To be effective, transportation, wildlife management and land management agencies must be involved in these plans. The third step involves choosing the appropriate location, structure type and structure size for target species. This process must take into consideration more than biological criteria and includes cost factors and construction feasibility issues born by highway agencies. Last, monitoring will help improve future wildlife crossing efforts and help all agencies and the public gain confidence in their effectiveness.

This chapter describes an inductive learning method that derives logic programs and invents predicates when needed. The basic idea is to form the least common anti-instance (LCA) of selected seed examples. If the LCA is too general it forms the starting poínt of a general-to-specific search which is guided by various constraints on argument dependencies and critica! terms. A distinguishing feature of the method is its ability to introduce new predicates. Predicate invention involves three steps. First, the need for a new predicate is discovered and the arguments of the new predicate are determíned using the same constraints that guide the search. In the second step, instances of the new predicate are abductively inferred. These instances form the input for the last step where the definition of the new predicate is induced by recursively applying the method again. We also outline how such a system could be more tightly integrated with an abductive learning system.

This chapter describes an inductive learning method that derives logic programs and invents predicates when needed. The basic idea is to form the least common anti-instance (LCA) of selected seed examples. If the LCA is too general it forms the starting poínt of a gneral-to-specific search which is guided by various constraints on argument dependencies and critical terms. A distinguishing feature of the method is its ability to introduce new predicates. Predicate invention involves three steps. First, the need for a new predicate is discovered and the arguments of the new predicate are determíned using the same constraints that guide the search. In the second step, instances of the new predicate are abductively inferred. These instances form the input for the last step where the definition of the new predicate is induced by recursively applying the method again. We also outline how such a system could be more tightly integrated with an abductive learning system.

The authors developed and tested a rapid assessment fish and wildlife linkage process on Highway 93 in Western Montana. Highway 93 is a north-south route that traverses remote high mountain ranges and intensively managed and settled valleys from Canada to Idaho. Twenty-nine species were analyzed including large carnivores such as grizzly bear, black bear, mountain lion and wolves, five ungulates, numerous species of small mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, plants and fish (including bull trout and cutthroat trout). The rapid assessment process uses readily-available public geographic information system data on vegetation, habitats, wildlife, fish, road kill, rare plant communities, topography, hydrology, land ownership patterns, existing conservation easements and point data on special habitats and species occurrences. An interagency group of local wildlife and fish experts was able to review approximately 200 miles of the 290-mile corridor in less than two days. Forty-eight potential wildlife and fish linkage areas were mapped and reported by milepost. The linkage areas are species and location specific. Some wildlife linkage areas were identified primarily from high vehicle collision rates with large ungulates (highway safety). The process is designed as a mid-scale analysis. It has value for initial determination of wildlife and fish linkage areas, potential wildlife and fish highway crossings, identification of key areas for wildlife and fish mitigation, potential areas for open space, conservations easements or land adjustments to benefit wildlife, fish and plant habitats. Involvement included county, state, federal agencies and non-profit conservation interests. Use of the process could substantially improve wildlife and fish coordination with highway planning throughout the United States and Canada. The process is cost effective, fast and accurate

The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee (IGBC) was formed in 1983 to promote and facilitate recovery of the threatened grizzly bear. In the lower 48 states the IGBC is a group of high-level administrators that represent the federal and state agencies involved in grizzly bear recovery. Obstacles have been overcome since then. However, the effective passage of significant numbers of grizzly bears across major highways to extend distribution and connect ecosystems has been a problem. Many bear deaths caused by automobiles have been documented. In December 1999, the IGBC decided that wildlife linkage areas are important conservation measures for grizzly bears and for other rare species such as the lynx, wolf, and wolverine. During 2000, state and federal agencies and many nongovernment conservation organizations met to map out and identify major habitat linkage/highway segments in the Northern Rockies. Reports, planning, and other habitat linkage information can be found at the IGBC web site: www.fs.fed.us/r1/wildlife/igbc/ The IGBC is addressing three areas for action. • Public land management. A list of tasks and actions will be prepared for each grizzly bear recovery ecosystem, a multi-interest work group lead by the Forest Service will develop public land recommendations, such as road management, acquisition units, timing of management actions, and other habitat linkage improvements, • Highway/transportation management. A multi-interest work group, lead by transportation specialists from the Forest Service and state departments of transportation will identify specific recommendations for critical segments of highways where wildlife passage problems have been determined. Work would include research and monitoring of wildlife use and crossings, maintenance or effective wildlife cover approaches to crossing structures, and selecting and testing of types of crossing structures. • Private ands/rural communities’ involvement action. In many areas, private land separates highway right of way and public land. People occupying this space need to understand and embrace the need for wildlife habitat connectivity. These work groups would consist of community leaders and private interests with a desire to co-exist with wildlife and promote species habitat connectivity. IGBC discussions revolved around the conservation biology foundations that large areas are better than smaller areas and connected habitats are better than isolated habitats for maintaining wildlife populations. The IGBC will be working toward these goals.

Why Elk? Elk are an excellent species to use as a “terrestrial wildlife indicator” for highway impacts. First, they are widespread and exist in all western states as well as several midwestern and eastern states. They are prevalent on many National Forest lands, Bureau of Land Management lands, USDI Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service lands. Much elk habitat is on public lands in the western United States (Flathers and Hoekstra 1989, Peek undated, Thomas and Toweill 1982). Elk are also one of the best studied animals in North America. This is particularly true in respect to the effects of roads on elk. Very few wildlife species have as much scientific literature directed at them. Information such as food habits, density, behavior, fecundity, migration patterns, home range sizes and other important scientific data also abounds. Socially, elk are almost universally accepted as important native wildlife. They are generally not controversial, and their presence is usually accepted or even cherished. Economically, elk are one of the most important wildlife species in the western US. The economics of elk includes revenues to state wildlife agencies, motels, restaurants, airlines, and sporting goods manufacturers and retailers. Elk are enjoyed by the public for hunting, for food value, for viewing, and other aesthetic purposes.