How to avoid cars and animals meeting head-on has taxed road and highway designers for years.
Many schemes exist but some road and overpass designs are more successful than others.
Fencing off a roadway is one method of preventing animals, usually large ones such as bears and moose, from wandering into the paths of oncoming vehicles. Another way to keep animals, and people, safe is to build an animal-friendly overpass where the surface appears as a continuation of the nearby landscape – hopefully an encouragement to animals.
That may be alright for the bears and moose of this world. But what about smaller one, such as the migrating red crab on Australia’s Christmas Island.
The tropical island, a territory administered by Australia, is only around 135km2 – more than half of this a national park – and is distant 3,385km to Australia’s shores. Crabs far outnumber the 2,000 or more permanent residents.
One ingenious method top keep the crusty critters from getting crushed can be seen by <%$Linker:2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 oLinkExternal clicking here Visit matadornetwork.com website false http://matadornetwork.com/change/6-of-the-worlds-most-ingenious-wildlife-overpasses-pics/ false false %> and scrolling down to number 6.
Other methods exist to keep the little crustaceans safe and a lot of thought has gone into their development, as well physical work by park officials and volunteers.
On Christmas Island, staff and locals stand by the road ready to help with garden rakes to help keep the crabs out from under cars. Temporary fencing is set up to keep crabs off the roads and funnel them to special crab crossings. The crossings need to be cleared of a year's worth of debris in order to be effective.
As the below video shows, their huge effort has resulted in a lot more crabs safely reaching the island’s coast to spawn.
Many schemes exist but some road and overpass designs are more successful than others.
Fencing off a roadway is one method of preventing animals, usually large ones such as bears and moose, from wandering into the paths of oncoming vehicles. Another way to keep animals, and people, safe is to build an animal-friendly overpass where the surface appears as a continuation of the nearby landscape – hopefully an encouragement to animals.
That may be alright for the bears and moose of this world. But what about smaller one, such as the migrating red crab on Australia’s Christmas Island.
The tropical island, a territory administered by Australia, is only around 135km2 – more than half of this a national park – and is distant 3,385km to Australia’s shores. Crabs far outnumber the 2,000 or more permanent residents.
One ingenious method top keep the crusty critters from getting crushed can be seen by <%$Linker:
Other methods exist to keep the little crustaceans safe and a lot of thought has gone into their development, as well physical work by park officials and volunteers.
On Christmas Island, staff and locals stand by the road ready to help with garden rakes to help keep the crabs out from under cars. Temporary fencing is set up to keep crabs off the roads and funnel them to special crab crossings. The crossings need to be cleared of a year's worth of debris in order to be effective.
As the below video shows, their huge effort has resulted in a lot more crabs safely reaching the island’s coast to spawn.
