Summer 2025

Newsletter Archive

BC Southern Interior Wildlife Crossings & Corridors Forum

Miistakis attended a 2-day Wildlife Crossings & Corridors Forum focused on BC Southern Interior in June.

The forum aimed to encourage relationships among participants and understand the scope of the wildlife crossings and corridors work occurring in the southern interior of BC. So much great work going on in BC to protect wildlife movement needs! We were honoured to present some of our experience on planning for corridors and crossings in Alberta.

We visited some interesting sites during the field trip, including the first wildlife overpass (crossing design has come a long way since this installation which looks like a narrow pedestrian bridge - but is being used especially by deer) in British Columbia on the Okanagan Connector (Highway 97C) near Kelowna. We visited a turtle crossing built to support movement of western painted turtles between wetland habitat bisected by a new road and residential development, equipped with fencing to direct the turtles to the opening, and a light spot mid-way through the tunnel. Monitoring to determine effectiveness of the tunnel by City of Kelowna is on-going. We also stopped at sntsk’il’ntən Regional Park (Black Mountain), 640 acers of culturally significant grasslands located on eastern edge of Kelowna. The park was created through collective efforts of the Regional District of Central Okanagan, Westbank First Nation, and the Province of British Columbia and is co-managed.

The Southern Interior Wildlife Crossings & Corridors Forum was hosted in collaboration with the Government of British Columbia, British Columbia Conservation Foundation (BCCF), Okanagan Institute for Biodiversity, Resilience, and Ecosystem Services (BRAES) at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Thompson-Nicola Conservation Collaborative (TNCC), and Okanagan Collaborative Conservation Program (OCCP).

Photo credit: Regional District of Central Okanagan, sntsk'il'ntən - Black Mountain Regional Park