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Keeping It Simple:
Easy Ways to Help Wildlife Along Roads

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Keeping cattle out of trout streams

How do you keep cattle out of pristine fish streams? How do you prevent them from tramping down the banks? Working cooperatively with area farmers, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation met both challenges with a simple solution: streambank cattle fencing. Along two sections of a trout stream in Somerset and Huntington Counties - off of US 219 near Meyersdale and at Truck Route 22 near the Village of Water Street - workers fenced both sides of the stream with five strands of high tensile wire and treated posts. The water quality improvement was dramatic. Within 3 years, populations of trout moved into what had been a significantly polluted stream.

Doing the right thing - simply

"Keeping it simple" is more than a concept. It's a commitment.

It means using simple solutions when simple solutions will work.

It involves going beyond "compliance" to identify easy ways of helping wildlife and fish.

It means doing the right thing just because it's the right thing to do and because one has an opportunity to do it.

"We can install ledges in culverts or wood-top rails on deer fences while at the same time pursuing programmatic, region-wide solutions to transportation and wildlife challenges," says FHWA Administrator Rick Capka.

This website highlights more than 100 simple, successful projects from all 50 states and beyond. Each is "easy." Most are low- or no-cost. All benefit wildlife, fish, or their habitats.

Many projects were completed only once - to protect specific species in specific environmental conditions. Others have been repeated numerous times and have become "routine."

Some projects are undertaken regularly because research has proven them effective. Others are new innovations, "best practices," or state-of-the-art strategies.

Some projects - for example, modifying mowing cycles and installing oversized culverts in streams - are common to a large number of states. Others represent a simple solution to a site-specific environmental challenge.

We invite you to explore them all. We encourage you to find out for yourselves, through this website, how transportation professionals are working with others to do the right thing for wildlife and--wherever possible--to do it "simply."