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Keeping It Simple:
Easy Ways to Help Wildlife Along Roads

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Stabilizing a stream bank with willows and dogwoods

Native willows and dogwoods make good streambank stabilizers because they grow quickly, form thickets, and adapt easily to wet conditions (they merely "flatten" during flooding). So the New York State Department of Transportation planted cuttings from dormant willows and dogwoods along a 1,000-foot section of Sawyer Creek, which had been relocated for the widening of Niagara Falls Boulevard. Cuttings were layered on the stream bank and fascines (stems and branches of rootable plant material tied together in long bundles) were placed in shallow trenches and anchored with live stakes. Most of the plantings survived, and the vegetated, stabilized stream bank has helped keep runoff and sediment from entering the water, benefiting the creek's Northern pike, brown bullhead, and other warmwater fish species. The willow-dogwood "buffer" has also provided habitat for wood and mallard ducks.

Doing the right thing - simply

"Keeping it simple" is more than a concept. It's a commitment.

It means using simple solutions when simple solutions will work.

It involves going beyond "compliance" to identify easy ways of helping wildlife and fish.

It means doing the right thing just because it's the right thing to do and because one has an opportunity to do it.

"We can install ledges in culverts or wood-top rails on deer fences while at the same time pursuing programmatic, region-wide solutions to transportation and wildlife challenges," says FHWA Administrator Rick Capka.

This website highlights more than 100 simple, successful projects from all 50 states and beyond. Each is "easy." Most are low- or no-cost. All benefit wildlife, fish, or their habitats.

Many projects were completed only once - to protect specific species in specific environmental conditions. Others have been repeated numerous times and have become "routine."

Some projects are undertaken regularly because research has proven them effective. Others are new innovations, "best practices," or state-of-the-art strategies.

Some projects - for example, modifying mowing cycles and installing oversized culverts in streams - are common to a large number of states. Others represent a simple solution to a site-specific environmental challenge.

We invite you to explore them all. We encourage you to find out for yourselves, through this website, how transportation professionals are working with others to do the right thing for wildlife and--wherever possible--to do it "simply."