In the Northern Sagebrush Steppe (NSS), pronghorn undertake daily and seasonal migratory movements to meet life requirements. Across this region, highways fragment the landscape and cause direct morality and/or disrupt movement patterns. Wildlife Xing is a citizen science program developed to ground truth seasonal migratory pinch-points identified by connectivity modeling across highways in the NSS and increase public engagement in pronghorn science and conservation. Information on wildlife sightings collected by the public will enable us to better understand where pronghorn and other wildlife are commonly crossing, involved in collisions, or moving adjacent to the highway. Ultimately this will lead to development of informed strategies to reduce wildlife vehicle collisions while ensuring the safe passage of wildlife across highways. The generated information will be shared with Government officials in Alberta, Saskatchewan and, Montana. Recently, this successful program has been brought to Montana and is being used by local high school science classes as a long-term monitoring project. Our hope is to engage as many local communities as possible.

Wildlife Xing includes the use of smartphone technology and associated on-line mapping tool to increase efficiency, accuracy and ease of data collection, and ultimately generate a dataset to be used to inform strategies to improve wildlife movement and both wildlife and human safety.

Wildlife Xing is a partnership project that currently includes Alberta Conservation Association, Alberta Environment and Parks, Alberta Transportation, Miistakis Institute, Saskatchewan Environment, Saskatchewan Government Insurance, Saskatchewan Highways and Infrastructure and, the National Wildlife Federation. As the program takes off, we hope to engage more partners in the United States include state and federal agencies, along with industry and local communities. The project has been generously supported by National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), Alberta Conservation Association, Go Wild Community Grants and, National Wildlife Federation. Wildlife Xing was developed using the RoadWatchBC brand, and we wish to acknowledge and thank the partners of RoadWatchBC for enabling the use of brand, partners include Miistakis Institute, Wildsight, Western Transportation Institute and Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.

How to Participate?

There are two ways for you to participate in Wildlife Xing:

• Smartphone Application: If you are a passenger in a vehicle driving in the Northern Sagebrush Steppe, download the Wildlife Xing smartphone app. When driving along highways:
  
  
  1. Start route (records a GPS point every 10 minutes to track route)
  2. Submit any sightings of wildlife
  3. End route (stops recording your route)

  
  The route option is important as it enables researchers to account for volunteer effort (how often the highway is driven and where it has been driven) and use the data to more accurately model the location of where wildlife cross the highway network.

• Mapping Tool: if you are a driver, remember where, when and what you saw while driving along the highways in SE Alberta, SW Saskatchewan and, Montana, then record your observation using the on-line mapping tool.

If you see wildlife on the highway and you are not sure what species it is, visit our Wildlife Identification section on the website.

How to contact us?

To learn more about Wildlife Xing, or have a questions in Alberta and Saskatchewan please contact info@wildlifexing.org.

If you are in Montana and need assistance please email: jakesa@nwf.org.

Educators in Montana should contact Naomi Alhadeff, Montana Education Manager, National Wildlife Federation 406-542-2803 or AlhadeffN@nwf.org and visit the Teacher's Corner.

If you experience any technical difficulties please contact info@rockies.ca.