BY Cecilia Garza, Peter Pearsall

For black bears, Florida’s State Road 46 is one of the deadliest motorways in the United States. It winds east-west for some 50 miles, skirting Seminole State Forest, one of the state’s key bear habitats. Since the year 2000, more than 100 bears were killed each year in collisions on Florida roads like this one, and for the last two decades around 80 percent of total bear deaths in the state came as a result of such accidents.

These deaths are a tragic outcome of what conservation biologists call “fragmentation,” which occurs when a species’ habitat is cut into small pieces by human infrastructure like roads and developments. Fragmented populations are vulnerable to threats including starvation, genetic isolation, and local extinction. If a fragmented population of bears can’t follow seasonally available food, and can’t deepen their gene pool with new mates, their chances of long-term survival are slim.

Luckily, bears that want to cross State Road 46 are better off today, because it now features an underpass designed specifically with their needs in mind. Passageways like this one, known as wildlife corridors, connect fragmented habitats. They helped to hasten the removal of the black bear from Florida’s endangered species list in 2012.

For more than 20 years, wildlife corridors have been among the tools conservationists used to make sure all sorts of animals were able to move around in search of food, mates, and territory. But today, climate change is forcing these specialists to change the way wildlife corridors are designed. As warming accelerates, animals and plants are starting to change the way they travel, generally moving north or to higher elevations in search of the cooler temperatures they’re used to.

Will our roads and buildings stand in the way of this exodus? New partnerships and tools suggest that we’re at least doing our best to make sure they don’t.

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