Bad News:  Well it’s hard to know exactly where the current tumult at the federal level will leave us, but so far it doesn't look great. Readers who are fans of the current president may feel like the chaos is a worthwhile price to get other things accomplished. Others may be already experiencing direct impacts to employment (federal employees and beyond), quality of life (our friends in LGBTQ+ communities), reproductive health and family choice, disease exposure (avian flu, measles, etc.) and general sense of well-being. There is evidence that automated text-query tools are being used to find individuals, meetings, collaborative groups, conferences, and organizations engaged in talking about diversity, equity and inclusion and other previously-mainstream topics. Bottom line, when involving fed partners, DON'T use Teams, don't record/transcribe meetings and DO keep up the good work. My colleagues in science and transportation ecology in general are struggling with balancing career and lack of desire to bow to authoritarian messaging. In some ways, we are on a cusp where we choose 1) compliant silence, 2) audible resistance, or 3) celebration of a new political system. I feel like only one of these really does service to our evolution as a species and society and protection of nature, so I vote for option #2. And here is a short list of things that remain on the bad news list: 1) Hypothetical linkages and corridors developed using GIS are still considered as "data" for conservation decision-making, usually without any basis in wildlife movement or occurrence; 2) In terms of effort and resources, transportation ecology focuses primarily on wildlife crossings and generally ignores the importance of wildlife mortality on roads and other well-characterized impacts of transportation; 3) barrier fencing is still described as "directional" despite absence of evidence that there is any directing; 4) Wildlife data critical to making transportation ecology decisions are squirreled away by public agencies, including in "environmental" states; and 5) Important ecology-related decisions are made by NGO/agency people with little or no knowledge of ecology. Okay, enough sour grapes, on to something better.

Better News:  Despite "everything going on these days" people are managing to keep trying to do good. Enthusiasm and funding for transportation ecology projects has continued to increase, primarily from state and private sources. It remains to be seen if this will be maintained, but the tail-winds from existing contracts should last for a while. Wildlife crossings continue to be planned and hopefully built, though evidence of their effectiveness still lags. Fencing associated with crossings continues to get built, though for some reason crossings are described as responsible for reducing wildlife-vehicle collision. Aquatic connectivity continues to be recognized as an important feature of conservation and a lot of credit goes to transportation agencies for keeping that ball rolling. Direct disturbance effects of traffic (light and noise) that extend beyond the roadway are getting more traction as people realize that wildlife respond negatively to these two anthropogenic impacts. Climate change effects are on the front-burner and don't need as much explanation as they used to. Solutions are still largely experimental, but the experiments are getting funded. And last and on the weird side, stalled federal infrastructure funding and RIFs may reduce the rate of new infrastructure construction, which one agency colleague said was absolutely a good thing for nature, though obviously not good for those same colleagues.

What is the Center Doing?  Which brings me to what the Road Ecology Center has been up to in 2024 and where we are going in 2025. We continue to have great partners in county and state government, wonderful NGO collaborators, and a growing wildlife-crossing portfolio with private firms and others. This year is an ICOET year (https://icoet.net), which REC organizes, so we are very busy with that. We have published and continue to work on studies/reports/articles related to: 1) effects of median barriers on wildlife permeability, 2) wildlife use of existing structures, 3) decision-support for wildlife crossing planning, 4) trans-continental interstate ecological impacts; 5) development of a multi-parametric wildlife crossing planning web-tool, 6) AI tools for wildlife monitoring at wildlife crossings and in driver-safety, 7) sea level rise impacts to shorelines, 8) modeling traffic noise and illumination impacts, 9) estimation of total roadkill for individual species at the mile and state scale, and 10) camera trap/animal sign monitoring near highways.

Our great partners:

Alameda, El Dorado, Siskiyou, and Santa Clara Counties; Peninsula Open Space Trust, Wildlife Conservation Network, The Nature Conservancy, Wildlands Network, California Deer Association; State transportation and wildlife agencies from AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, ID, ME, MO, MT, NV, OH, OR, VA, VT, WA, and other states; federal agencies (no list to keep them out of trouble); Dudek, Mark Thomas. 

Happy 2025, stay buoyant