SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO (AP) – New Mexico will build its first wildlife highway overpasses for free-roaming cougars, black bears, bighorn sheep and other creatures large and small and will also set aside USD100 million for conservation projects, under two bills signed on Thursday by Govenor Michelle Lujan Grisham.
Advocates for the initiatives said the state stands to capture millions of dollars in federal matching funds for wildlife crossings and an array of established conservation programmes.
New Mexico hopes to expand efforts ranging from river stewardship to outdoor adventures for young people from low-income households.
The state’s first wildlife bridge is likely to span a state highway that traverses remote desert oilfields and Native American lands of the Navajo Nation, Jicarilla Apache Nation and several pueblo communities, including a treacherous hotspot for wildlife-auto collisions north of Cuba, New Mexico.
Several hundred large animals are killed in the state each year by collisions that can also total cars and severely injure human passengers. The state estimates property damage from such wrecks at nearly USD20 million annually, while unbroken roads also fracture habitats for monitored species of concern including the ornate box turtle, white-nosed coati and gila monster.
Recent casualties include a roughly four-year-old mountain lion that previously bore kittens and was struck and killed on State Highway 550 at Santa Ana Pueblo in January at night.
“We have to start thinking big in the context of how expensive it is to do the right public safety and conservation work,” Lujan Grisham said. “It is in fact expensive because it is a generational investment in the well-being” of New Mexico.
