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Keeping It Simple:
Easy Ways to Help Wildlife Along Roads

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Flexible Bridge-Lighting Design Helps Migratory Birds and Endangered Turtles

How do you illuminate a spectacular gateway bridge without disturbing the nests of loggerhead sea turtles nearby or altering the flight pattern of migratory birds flying close to the bridge? When the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) faced this challenge on the new Ravenel Bridge spanning the Cooper and Wando Rivers and connecting Charleston with the town of Mt. Pleasant, the Department signed an agreement with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to use 250-watt bulbs instead of the originally planned 1,000-watt bulbs to light up the bridge's two diamond-shaped towers and its 128 supporting cables. In talks with local government, SCDOT also agreed to turn off the aesthetic lighting from 10 pm to 6 am during the loggerheads' nesting season (May through October). For the rest of the year, lights would go out at midnight except for a flashing light at the top of the bridge and safety lighting along the road bed. Proposed overhead sign-lighting was abandoned in favor of highly reflective sheeting. Thanks to SCDOT's flexibility, loggerheads won't leave their nests prematurely, migratory birds won't fly towards the bridge lights, and local taxpayers will ultimately benefit from lower power costs.

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."