Just Another Day in (Paved) Paradise

4 million = Miles of roads in the United States.

226 million = Number of vehicles registered in the United States.

23 trillion = Vehicle miles traveled in the United States in 2002.

6.3 million = Number of automobile accidents annually in the United States.

253,000 = Number of animal-vehicle accidents annually.

50 = Estimated percentage of vehicle-large animal collisions that go unreported.

90 = Percentage of animal-vehicle collisions that involve deer $2,000.

$2000 = Average minimum cost for repairing a vehicle after a collision with a deer

1 million = Number of vertebrates run over each day in the United States (a rate of one every 11.5 seconds).

200 = Number of human deaths annually resulting from vehicle-wildlife collisions.

6 = Number of bears killed last year by vehicles in Yellowstone National Park.

1,559 = Number of animals killed on Yellowstone National Park roads from 1989-2003. Figure includes 556 elk, 192 bison, 135 coyotes, 112 moose, 24 antelope and 3 bobcats.

2,349 = Number of large animals killed on New Mexico roads in 2001. Figure includes 30 black bears, 160 elk and 600 deer.

51,000 = Number of vertebrates killed in and around Saguaro National Park by automobiles each year. Figure includes 1,400 birds, 6,500 mammals, 26,000 reptiles and 17,000 amphibians.

25,000 = Number of "Roadkill Bingo" games sold by the Colorado company that invented the game.

93 = Percentage by which desert tortoise roadkill was reduced after fencing and culverts were installed on one 15-mile stretch of Mojave Desert highway.

40 = Percentage by which deer-vehicle collisions were reduced after installation of a deer crosswalk system in northeast Utah.

HR3550 = Number of House transportation bill that would require states to plan for wildlife crossings when improving or constructing highways.

Above info provided by High Country News, http://www.hcn.org/issues/291/15268. Sources for statistics on pages 9, 11, 12: U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration; Wildlands CPR; Wildlife Crossings Toolkit ( www.wildlifecrossings.info/beta2.htm ); National Park Service; New Mexico Department of Game and Fish; Defenders of Wildlife; and the U.S. Humane Society.