Friends of Plumas Wilderness and Plumas Audubon Society invite the community to the first in their Cultivating Connectivity speaker series program. The event will be held Wednesday, April 17, at 6:30 p.m. at the Quincy branch of the Plumas County Library at 445 Jackson St. Attendance is free and open to the public.
The featured speaker for the evening is Mari Galloway, California director of Wildlands Network, who will be presenting on wildlife corridor research and policy, and wildlife crossing implementation initiatives occurring in the Northern Sierra and beyond. As California director, Galloway develops collaborative and strategic partnerships to further policy and land use initiatives that promote wildlife corridors and core habitat protections throughout California.
Galloway brings a wealth of experience to her role, having spent her childhood on a farm in the San Joaquin Valley of California and her summers in the Sierra Nevada, near Ebbetts Pass. Her outdoor exposure inspired her to study ecology, pursuing her bachelor’s degree in environmental science from Humboldt State University. Recognizing the threats to these ecosystems motivated her to protect them, prompting her to obtain a law degree at the University of Oregon in 2020.
Galloway has combined her passion for science and policy through working with wildlife and ecology experts to advance innovative legislation and on-the-ground landscape-scale initiatives. One such initiative is Wildlands Network’s wildlife corridor project along Highway 395, a stretch of road
infamous for vehicle and animal collisions.
“Like many highways in the West, U.S. 395 poses a barrier to the movement of all wildlife, great and
small,” says Fraser Shilling, director of road ecology at the University of California, Davis. “In many stretches of U.S. 395 south of Susanville, we have found continuing high rates of collisions between wildlife and vehicles, posing a risk to the wildlife and the drivers.”
A 13-mile stretch of Highway 395 in Lassen County has no existing culverts or bridges wildlife can use. GPS collaring has identified this same stretch as a migration corridor for the Doyle deer herd, causing the Highway 395 project area to be one of the 10 worst deer-collision hotspots in the state.
Due to wildlife collision rates, habitat fragmentation and other factors, mountain lions and mule deer — the two species most widely impacted by vehicle collisions in California — have been declining in numbers over the last few decades. Deer populations have been steadily declining in Lassen County. When adult deer are killed by vehicles, they can’t teach their young where to migrate, potentially severing their migration corridors permanently.
To address the issue, organizers say conservation and restoration, local planning, and wildlife crossing infrastructure are essential to sustaining biodiversity and a future for these species. Wildlife crossings can improve wildlife movement while reducing dangerous wildlife-vehicle collisions by up to 100%.
Galloway will present on the importance of intact landscapes for healthy ecosystems and discuss ongoing efforts, including research, wildlife crossings and policy, to connect habitats in the Northern Sierra and beyond.
“We are devoted to one thing: wildlife movement,” says Galloway. “While others may focus on a particular place or topic, we specialize in the big picture, in landscape-scale connection, which is what wildlife need to survive. As a result, our team’s expertise runs the gamut, so we can deploy specialized strategies as needed for particular projects.”
More information is available at https://plumaswilderness.org/connect/cultivatingconnectivity/ and
http://www.plumasaudubon.org/speakers.html.
Information provided by Friends of Plumas Wilderness
