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Wildlife Protection

Keeping It Simple: Easy Ways to Help Wildlife Along Roads

Not mowing "excess" right of way benefits wildlife

When the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department revised its mowing schedules a few years ago, it established roadside "high maintenance zones" and "transition zones." On particularly wide rights of way the Department also created "natural zones" just beyond the "transition zones." These natural areas are never mowed. The no-mowing policy has helped increase available wildlife habitat on more than 30,000 acres throughout the state. Birds and butterflies flock to the now-flourishing native wildflowers in these natural zones, and fox squirrels, whitetail deer, and other animals eat the nuts and acorns of the 370,000 hardwoods planted by the Department.
 
--Apr 25, 2003

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo

Eastern fox squirrel