When the North Carolina Department of Transportation began widening U.S. Highway 64 through eastern North Carolina a decade ago, they asked the University of Tennessee to study how the new road would impact wildlife.
Today, the completed four-lane highway shaves off an hour’s drive between Raleigh and the Outer Banks. It also cuts through some of the richest wildlife habitat in the South – thousands of acres of uninhabited swamps, pine plantations and agricultural fields with black bear densities as high as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
UT’s goal was to determine the effectiveness of underpasses in reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions, and also to assess the short-term impacts of the road construction on nearby black bears.
Frank van Manen, adjunct professor in UT’s department of forestry, wildlife and fisheries, said the U.S. Highway 64 study was unique in that the research team was able to collect data before and after the highway was built. Data collection occurred during the 2000-2001 preconstruction phase and in 2006-2007 after the road was finished.
The rest of the article can be found on the Knoxville News Sentinel Co website, here.
