Uttarakhand has built an eco-bridge that aids animals cross a highway
Bengaluru: Uttarakhand has built an eco-bridge that aids animals cross a highway.
The two-lane highway is called Kaladhungi-Nainital highway.
The bridge is 90 feet long, 5 feet wide, 40 feet in height and can withstand the weight of 3 human adults.
It should be noted that the highway under question is the main route to travel to Nainital. It is used by a number of people, especially tourists.
It is further important to note that animals, as they cross the highway, get crushed under the wheels of the moving vehicles. Hence the eco-bridge.
The jungle on either side is home to lizards, snakes, including pythons, rodent squirrels, and monkeys, and reptiles.
WION quoted Ramnagar Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Chandra Shekhar Joshi as saying, “The bridge, which will be monitored by four camera traps, will be studied as a model by the Forest Department.”
He further noted, “The bridge has been made at a point where the road arcs in a wide `U`, and vehicles going downhill often travel at high speed. It is expected that by reducing the need for sudden braking in front of a crossing animal, the road will be safer for human beings too.”
The website quoted another forest official as saying, "This is a dense forest, and elephants, leopards, deer, and blue bulls move in this area. Drivers can see them from some distance and slow down or stop, but they rarely do so for snakes, lizards, monitors, or squirrels".
Now that the bridge is built, officials are working hard to invite the reptiles to use the bridge by growing creepers around it.
Apart from it, officials are also working hard to sensitise people not to use the bridge for selfies. They are also taking measures to erect a board about the bridge.
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