Using grant funding from Caltrans’ Division of Research, Innovation, and System Information, CPH wildlife professor Micaela Szykman Gunther and her undergraduate and graduate students are working with the state agencies to develop wildlife radio collars that trigger road signs to light up.
Students will capture and fit Roosevelt elk from the nearby herds with the specialized radio collars. Transmitters on the collars will communicate with a series of 20 antennas fixed on roadside posts, spread 300 feet apart along Highway 101. If an elk comes within 150 feet of one of the receivers, it will signal a lighted road sign to flash. When elk aren’t close to the road, the sign will remain unlit.
“Everyone has seen these signs like ‘deer crossing,’ but you ignore them,” Gunther told SFGate. “If a sign is flashing that there is a hazard and threat on the road, I think that’s going to work.”
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The research team is currently collecting data on elk movements and road crossings, and they currently aim to have the Electronic Detection System in place and operational by the summer of 2024. If it works well, CDFW and Caltrans hope it can be useful for other wildlife species in other parts of the state, too, the CPH press release says.