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Keeping It Simple:
Easy Ways to Help Wildlife Along Roads

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Featured Project

Centrally located nesting box attracts birds and aids monitoring

Like many newly-created wetlands, a new site off of NH Route 11 in Andover, New Hampshire, lacked nesting features to attract birds. So biologists from the New Hampshire Department of Transportation mounted a nesting box on metal posts and placed it in the center of one of the site's wetland monitoring areas to serve as a highly visible marker for monitoring crews. As soon as the birdbox was installed, a pair of barn swallows occupied it and established a nest. They've been coming back regularly ever since.

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."