Life bridge of wildlife

When I finish the work of marine city, I always think that human beings expand their own living space and at the same time compress the living space of animals. This is especially true for China, which is in a period of rapid development. How to make highway system and forest system coexist harmoniously is an urgent problem to be solved in ecological restoration.

For this problem, biological corridor raised my interest. It is an application type of landscape ecological corridor, which mainly refers to the functional connection of two or more habitat patches that were once connected but resulted from fragmentation, which is conducive to the movement of animals and plants between these patches and the enhancement of the connectivity of isolated populations. My favorite example of ecological corridors is Banff National Park corridor.

Banff National Park in Alberta, located in the Rocky Mountains in western Canada, is the earliest and largest national park in Canada. The park, which was established in 1885, covers an area of 6641 square kilometers and is home to more than 50 species of wild mammals. The Canada expressway was completed and opened to traffic in 1962. It is a main trunk line running through Alberta. It is also the main external traffic road of Banff National Park. The expressway crosses the park and the River valley where the park is located, separating the habitats of elk, bighorn deer, moose, wolf, leopard, black bear, grizzly bear and other animals. The expressway runs through a total length of 45km from the east entrance of Banff to the castor interface in the West. Most of the area belongs to the rich and colorful animal home of River Valley. There are 54 species of mammals and 280 species of birds in the park. The dense shuttle traffic on the highway blocked the migration and migration path of many animals, and made them face the threat of death.

In 1986, the government built eleven under road biological channels within the scope of forty-five kilometers of Banff section of expressway. In 1997, the eleven under road biological channels and two on road channels were built in this area, making the total number of animal channels in this area raised to twenty-four. In addition, two point four meters high fences have been erected on both sides of the highway to prevent animals from crossing at will. The section of highway passing through forest park forms a biological channel system.

The example of Banff Park is a good reference, which shows the different channel construction methods for different species in different regions from multiple angles, and they interact with each other to form a channel network to ensure the effectiveness of ecological restoration. This solution needs to go through a long process. I think we should follow the ecological habits of animals, collect enough data, establish a comprehensive monitoring system and good ecological restoration technology to ensure that the biological channel can really benefit the local.