Build “green bridge” crossings for wildlife

Helping Turkish Wildlife Cross the Road

Turkey’s Environment & Forestry minister has demanded that the state highway construction agency build “green bridge” crossings for wildlife

20 March 2011 - Although the country’s environmental policy is rather bleak overall, with the prime minister vowing to continue building a nuclear reactor on a fault line in the southern region of Akkuyu, and the country’s clean energy program more rhetoric than reality, at least wild animals won’t have to risk their necks crossing Turkey’s highways anymore. Environment and Forestry Minister Veysel Eroğlu has called on the General Directorate of Highways, the state agency which constructs public roadways, to build wildlife crossings over highways that bisect major wildlife habitats.

“Animals live in large areas, not like humans, who may live within a home of 100 square meters. For example, a bear can have a living area of up to 15 kilometers in which he travels and sleeps,” the minister pointed out, in an article in the Turkish daily Today’s Zaman. {continued}