Animal Bridges

Generically these are known as Animals Crossings as any fabricated structure, which facilitates the movements of animals across an impeding obstacle such as roads, or railway line could serve as a crossing.

However, as the most spectacular crossings are bridges, the focus will be on bridges.

Main picture: A Green Wildlife Bridge over an Autobahn in Germany

Even though the primary focus of conservation efforts are on the preservation of their habitats and their numbers, a lesser factor in these efforts is to prevent the fragmentation of the habitat into unsustainable pieces of land.

A Grizzly Bear Emerging from an Underpass after Crossing the Trans-Canada Highway in Banff National Park

Every additional highway or railway line has the unintended consequence of fragmenting the natural habitat penning animals into an ever-diminishing area. The inexorably consequence is species gene pool being shrunken. In addition, the natural range of many animals is vast.

A Rope Bridge over the Hume Freeway in Victoria

In order to overcome all these negative consequences, many countries with potent wildlife conservation ethics, have since the 1950s been constructing animal bridges.