Animal crossings: the ecoducts helping wildlife navigate busy roads across the world Level 2

India’s tiger corridor
India’s first wildlife underpasses were a
hard-fought victory for environmental 
campaigners. Collisions with big cats still 
happen, but environmentalists say the 
underpasses have highlighted the need 
for more wildlife crossings on India’s road 
network. At least 18 species use the crossings, 
including tigers, wild dogs, sloth bears, civets 
and leopards. “According to our calculations, 
55,000km of roads pass through India’s forests 
and protected areas, many of them through 
wildlife corridors,” Milind Pariwakam, of the 
Wildlife Conservation Trust, said.
Bhutan’s elephant crossing
Nearly 700 Asian elephants live in Bhutan’s 
forest on the eastern edge of the Himalayas. 
The small Buddhist country lies between 
China and India and is known for its dramatic 
landscapes and environmental leadership, as 
one of the few carbon-negative countries in 
the world. On the 183km east–west motorway, 
Bhutan’s first elephant underpasses were 
constructed to help the threatened animals 
move through the landscape. 
Sloth bridges in Costa Rica
Wildlife passes are not always bridges or 
underpasses. In Costa Rica, canopy bridges 
are used to help sloths, monkeys and other 
wildlife cross roads to avoid collisions, dog 
attacks and electrocutions on power lines. 
The rope bridges are installed in areas where 
rainforest has been interrupted by human 
development. Crossing roads is often deadly 
for the slow-moving creatures. “People look 
at them and think that they’re so poorly 
equipped to survive because you see them 
crossing roads and trying to move around 
and they look so awkward and useless,” 
Rebecca Cliffe, head of the Sloth Conservation 
Foundation, said earlier in 2021. “But if you put 
them in a well-connected rainforest, then they 
are masters of survival.”
© Guardian News and Media 2021 
First published in The Guardian 29/12/2021
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