Give Wildlife a Chance, Slow Down When Driving in the Park

Seattlepi: Sunlight streams through a dense canopy, casting a shimmering glow on a stream that dips under a well-traveled park road.

“I call this the kill zone,” said Moose Mutlow, a contractor with the Yosemite Institute. “Animals crossing here just don’t stand a chance.”

Mutlow has studied the park’s roadkill and found that hundreds of the very animals visitors come here to see – from squirrels to black bears – end up dead on Yosemite’s busy byways.

It’s easy to see why: In national parks and wildlife refuges across the country, tourists gawking at towering granite faces or roaring waterfalls often speed eagerly from one sight to the next, giving wildlife little chance to scurry out of the way.