Somers-Lakeside corridor tops list for wildlife crashes

The winding stretch of U.S. 93 between Somers and Lakeside earned the state’s top ranking for vehicle collisions with wildlife, according to a study published last month by the Center for Large Landscape Conservation.

Beginning about three miles south of Lakeside and continuing to just north of Somers, the heavily trafficked highway had 357 wildlife collisions during the months of October through December from 2010 to 2015, as measured by the total number of game-animal carcasses collected by the Montana Department of Transportation.

In its study, the Bozeman-based conservation group identified 10-mile stretches of road throughout the state to rank “high-risk zones.” Apart from the list-topping highway stretch along the northwest corner of Flathead Lake, the remainder of the top-10 collision hot spots were located in Southwest Montana.

The report also calculated a “carcass rate,” or the number of carcasses recorded per mile during the collision-heavy fall season. For the highway section south of Kalispell, the rate was nearly six collisions per mile, compared with four on a section of U.S. 191 west of Bozeman that ranked second on the list.

According to statistics from State Farm Insurance, drivers in Montana had a 1-in-58 chance of hitting a deer from June 2015 to July 2016, a frequency second only to West Virginia. Nearly 37,000 carcasses were recorded by the Department of Transportation from 2010 to 2015, of which 92 percent were deer.

The report notes the high costs of crashing into large wildlife, including an average of 200 human fatalities each year. On average, vehicle damage totaled $6,000 for a collision with a deer, more than $17,000 for an elk and over $30,000 for a moose, the report states, citing a cost-benefit analysis study published in Ecology and Society.

The Center for Large Landscape Conservation recommends both increased driver awareness on Montana roadways and investments in wildlife crossings to reduce the number of animals straying onto the pavement.

“Many mitigation measures allow wildlife to safely cross highways, as opposed to simply restricting individuals to one side, thus preserving crucial landscape connectivity for wildlife populations while reducing [wildlife-vehicle collision] risk,” the report states. “Although mitigation measures may require large initial investment and maintenance expenses, the threshold collision rate at which the measures become cost-effective is surprisingly low in some cases.”

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.