Alabama Highway Impact

THE IMPACTS OF HIGHWAY ON WILDLIFE IN ALABAMA AND THE US
Road construction and operation often cause the topography, vegetation, runoff and micro-climate characteristics to significantly change, resulting in interference to wildlife, forcing original living habits and activity patterns to change. For example, traffic noise affects the communicating, living and breeding activity of birds. In 2011, an estimated 300 dead birds have been found on the side of the I-65 highway in Alabama; some large habitats which are low in reproductive rate and require specific biotopes are more sensitive to the highway construction and operation, such as Alabama red-bellied turtles, which are endangered species in Mobile Bay, Alabama. During the construction of highways, construction also can result chaos to the soil animals and amphibians. During during the operation, it easily causes the roadkill of the small animal who tries to cross the highway, like the dead raccoons always found on the Interstates in Alabama.

Because highways occupy large amounts of land, they have a negative impact on food quality and micro-climate and other ecological factors. These elements can cause the biotype quality to change and habitats to become fragmented. Affected by the
Highway development increases the disturbance on wildlife, which makes the utilization of the right of way in decrease. In the United States, the road network has gradually become more and more intensive, the vehicle lanes of highway have become wider, and the buffer space on both sides of the road has become larger. These are some of the causes to habitat fragmentation. According the report of the U.S. Department of Transportation, the highway density in US is about 40 miles in 40 square miles. And this number will continue to grow, which means the habitat fragmentation will become more serious because of the highway network