Safe Passage

The I-40 Pigeon River Gorge Wildlife Crossing Project

safe passage

Documentary produced by Wildlands Network, NPCA to be featured at Boone Docs film fest

“The Search for Safe Passage,” a short film produced by Wildlands Network and National Parks Conservation Association, is set to make its big screen debut at the Boone Docs Film Festival, held in Boone, North Carolina, on Saturday, Feb. 25. The film, which features interviews with Safe Passage Fund Coalition members Dr. Liz Hillard of Wildlands Network and Jeff Hunter of NCPA, highlights the organizations’ work and research in the Pigeon River Gorge over the last several years.

Organized by the Appalachian Theatre of the High Country, Boone Docs showcases short-form documentary films that celebrate life in and around Appalachia. Each of the selected documentaries range from four to 24 minutes in duration, with “The Search for Safe Passage” coming in at 8 minutes in length.

A synopsis for “The Search for Safe Passage” describes the highway through the Pigeon River Gorge as “treacherous” for those “on four wheels or four legs” alike. “Here, Interstate 40 winds through the steep, forested terrain of the Great Smoky Mountains, allowing cars to drive east to west but preventing wildlife from moving north to south,” the description continues.

The film’s screening at the festival will be followed by a short Q&A session with Hunter, the Southern Appalachian director of National Parks Conservation Association, and Hillard, senior wildlife biologist at Wildlands Network.

Boone Docs Film Festival will be held from 2-6 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 25 at the Appalachian Theatre of the High Country, 559 West King St., Boone, North Carolina.

To watch “The Search for Safe Passage,” click here.

Crosby helped inspire ‘A Search for Safe Passage,’ allusions to his lyrics made throughout the book

Legendary singer-songwriter David Crosby passed away on Jan. 19, 2023, at age 81. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young).

Crosby’s music influenced Great Smoky Mountains Association’s creative director Frances Figart in writing the award-winning title “A Search for Safe Passage.” Set in a microcosm of the Pigeon River Gorge and featuring 19 species that collaborate to find a safe way to cross the road, the book is geared for young readers but offers a plethora of humor and significance for adults who love literature and music.

“David Crosby’s haunting post-apocalyptic anthem ‘Wooden Ships’ became the soundtrack for my creative work,” Figart (which rhymes with Tiger) writes in an essay about her influences that appears at the end of the book. In the song, two groups of desolate people from opposite sides of a war encounter each other after the destruction has rendered them weak and nearly dead—and some don’t even know who won!

“The song began to represent for me a dreadful future when we have lost our iconic Appalachian species to our own blindness and apathy—a time when humans would say to the few remaining individual bear, deer, and elk:

Horror grips us as we watch you die
All we can do is echo your anguished cries

And the animals would reply:
We are leaving, you don’t need us.

Oh, but we do need them!”

“A Search for Safe Passage” alludes to “Wooden Ships”in several ways.

Since the animal territory in the gorge is now divided by the highway into the North and South, those on the North side believe that the ones in the South have shinier coats because they live nearer to the river. So, Deer says to Bobcat in Chapter 4, “I can see by your coat, my friend, you’re from the other side.”

David Crosby’s haunting post-apocalyptic anthem “Wooden Ships” is alluded to in several different ways throughout “A Search for Safe Passage.”

Later, at the end of Chapter 6, Hawk catches “a fair wind blowing warm out of the south” and “sets a course” like the narrator at the end of “Wooden Ships.”

Then, in Chapter 7, Skunk asks Opossum a famous question from the song: “Hey, can I have some of your purple berries?”

And in Firefly’s final poem, the lines “free and easy,” and “the way it’s supposed to be,” also come from “Wooden Ships.” Firefly’s poem actually satirically combines Crosby’s lyrics with some from Samuel Francis Smith’s “America (My Country, ‘Tis of Thee).”

Figart finally alludes to the influence of Croz with the moniker “Human Highway,” the name of a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album that was never published.

“David was one of my many muses, and his voice never faltered even as he made four solo albums in his 70s,” she said. “Many will miss him, and his spirit and influence will live on in the music that captivated several generations.”

You can purchase the book here to read more about wildlife crossings as well as Figart’s creative influences and allusions.

Safe Passage partners with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy

By Jeffrey Hunter

Safe Passage is a project whose foundation and strengths are partnership and collaboration. In 2019, National Parks Conservation Association and Wildlands Network partnered on a two-year research project to identify mortality hotspots and solutions to wildlife deaths along a 28-mile stretch of Interstate 40 in Tennessee and North Carolina.  

At the junction of this interstate project lies the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. The “AT,” as it is commonly referred to, is arguably the world’s best-known hiking trail. But the trail is much more than a recreational resource. The AT is a 2,198-mile wildlife corridor, a sanctuary for things wild and free.

Just seven months into our research, our wildlife cameras captured a photo of a cow elk and her calf on the AT where it crosses under I-40 at the Waterville Road exit. In the image, you can see a white blaze painted on the highway bridge pillar! Yes, this large ungulate and her yearling were using the AT to safely cross beneath the busy road and “get to the other side.”

In the last few years, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) has broadened its view beyond the narrow trail corridor. The Appalachian Trail Landscape Partnership takes a broad approach to conserving the trail and its surrounding lands. In 2021, the National Park Service and the ATC held a six-part Science and Stewardship Symposium. Safe Passage was featured in Session 3, Part 2 of this series and you can download a digital copy of the proceedings here.

An elk cow and calf beneath Interstate 40 at the Waterville Road exit, where the AT crosses under the highway. Courtesy of Wildlands Network and NPCA.

In December 2022, NPCA Conservation Biologist Steve Goodman and I spent a morning out on the AT with Matt Drury, the ATC’s Associate Director of Science and Stewardship. To spend a few hours in the field with Matt is an opportunity to learn about the living landscape that the trail wends through on its way from Georgia to Maine. In addition to discussing landscape connectivity as it relates to the trail and highways, we talked about the challenge that invasive exotic species like the Emerald Ash Borer and Chinese silvergrass (Miscanthus sinens) pose to the integrity of the natural systems that surround the AT.

Matt is committed to deepening his organization’s partnership with the Safe Passage collaborative. And for good reason. Beyond I-40, the Appalachian Trail crosses beneath a number of busy interstates, including I-26 at Sam’s Gap on the Tennessee–North Carolina border. In September 2019, a young bull elk was struck and killed on I-26, just a few miles from the Appalachian Trail. Yes, the issues that we’re addressing along I-40 can be found up and down the length of the trail.

“The Appalachian Trail traverses the most important ecological corridor in the Eastern US and the ATC is continually working with partners to enhance, restore, and connect conservation lands whenever possible,” Matt said. “As surrounding habitat is lost, it becomes increasingly important to maintain, improve, and restore wildlife habitat and provide safe passage for the denizens of the AT landscape.”

We are grateful for our burgeoning partnership with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and look forward to deepening our ties in 2023.

Jeff Hunter is the Southern Appalachian Director for National Parks Conservation Association. In 2000, he hiked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. He currently serves on the Steering Committee for the Appalachian Trail Landscape Partnership.

Bull elk killed on I-26 East just below Sam’s Gap on October 12. Image by Stephanie Thomas Wood.

In the News: Berea College Magazine publishes ‘A Search for Safe Passage’ author reflection

In a December article for Berea College Magazine, “A Search for Safe Passage” author and Berea alumna Frances Figart reflected on all that led up to her work advocating for safe wildlife crossings in the Pigeon River Gorge and beyond.

In the article, Figart recalled that, as a child growing up in eastern Kentucky, she often created “books” for her parents with protagonists like foxes, bobcats, raccoons and opossums. “The only sadness I recall was seeing these wild creatures killed by vehicles on our narrow, winding country roads,” she wrote.

Folding her lifelong passion for protecting animals into her job, Figart supported her employer, Great Smoky Mountains Association, in joining other organizations to create what would become the Safe Passage Fund Coalition.

Around that same time, during the COVID-19 lockdown, Figart thought: “Why not create a story you would have loved to read with your parents as an 11-year-old in the mountains of eastern Kentucky?”

To read the full article in Berea College Magazine, click here.

“A Search for Safe Passage” was written by Frances Figart, pictured, and illustrated by Emma Oxford.

Published by Great Smoky Mountains Association in 2021 and tied to the mission of the Safe Passage Fund Coalition, “A Search for Safe Passage” tells the story of best friends Bear and Deer who grew up together in a beautiful Appalachian gorge, though their home is now divided in two by a dangerous Human Highway. Geared toward readers age 7-13, the book features 19 species of wildlife found in Southern Appalachia and includes an additional nonfiction section with educational lessons about animal habitat requirements, behavior, migration patterns, and roadway ecology problems and solutions developed with input from both international and local experts. 

Safe Passage receives grant from Community Foundation of WNC

Members of the Safe Passage Fund Coalition are grateful to announce that the organization recently received funding for its 2023 communications and outreach work through a grant from The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina.

With this grant, we will continue raising financial and public support for mitigating wildlife–vehicle collisions along the 28-mile stretch of Interstate 40 through the Pigeon River Gorge.

The Community Foundation is a nonprofit serving eighteen counties in Western North Carolina. The Foundation is a permanent regional resource that facilitated $29 million in charitable giving last year. CFWNC inspires philanthropy and mobilizes resources to enrich lives and communities in Western North Carolina.

Support beyond the seven: A closer look at other organizations that have contributed to Safe Passage

If you poke around this website, you’ll learn that seven nonprofit organizations have joined forces to raise funds to help make Interstate 40 in the Pigeon River Gorge safer for both motorists and wildlife.

Beyond this group of seven, there are several other nonprofit organizations that play a critical role in Safe Passage: The I-40 Pigeon River Gorge Wildlife Crossing Project. Here’s a look at four of those organizations and their significant contributions.

Let’s start with the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy. SAHC is an Asheville-based land trust committed to protecting wildlife corridors in North Carolina and Tennessee. In 2017, they acquired the 147-acre Stevens Creek tract adjacent to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In 2022, SAHC acquired an additional 13 acres at this location. These lands are particularly important for elk and other critters that leave the park, helping them thrive in a patchwork of private and public lands.

In 2019, SAHC acquired the 195-acre Wilkins Creek Tract.  This parcel is adjacent to the Pisgah National Forest and a concrete box culvert that runs beneath the highway. Subsequently, our research indicated that this was one of our hottest hot spots for black bear mortality. These lands are now permanently protected from development, which means animals near the busy highway may have a better chance to stay safe.

This aerial shot of the Waterville Dam and Lake, along with most other aerial shots on Safe Passage’s website, were taken by Jake Faber of Southwings. Southwings has been a critically important partner of Safe Passage. See more on this partnership below.
Click here to learn more about the seven organizations that make up Safe Passage Fund Coalition.

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is another key partner. RMEF played a role in SAHC’s acquisition of the 147-acre Stevens Creek tract. Their relationship with the Farmer Family helped make that conservation success story possible. In addition, they have provided nearly $40,000 to support our research. Their generous contribution allowed us to purchase 40 wildlife cameras. In addition, RMEF is currently supporting research being conducted by Warren Wilson College student Aurora Wynne.

Southwings is our critically important aviation partner. This Asheville based organization’s mission is “conservation through aviation.” Southwings’ volunteer pilots have flown Safe Passage Fund Coalition members and other Safe Passage supporters over Interstate 40 a handful of times. This includes flying journalists, researchers, and videographers, resulting in clear and compelling stories that have helped to advance our work. Check out the video associated with a 2019 Asheville Citizen Times article titled “Bringing back historic wildlife corridors to the mountains.” We would not be where we are today without them.

Finally, the Tennessee Wildlife Federation is Safe Passage’s voice in Tennessee. Their staff have been working closely with Tennessee DOT, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), key legislators, and Governor Lee’s staff to advance our vision in the Volunteer State. We couldn’t be more grateful for their partnership and their dedication to our shared cause.