UW-Stevens Point professor Peter Zani will give a program at the March 11, 2020 Friends of the Black River meeting about the wildlife tunnel installed under State Highway 66 to reduce the number of turtles injured or killed on that roadway near Stevens Point.
The meeting will be held in The Hub at the Lunda Community Center beginning at 6:30 p.m. The program is free and the public is encouraged to attend.
The DNR and DOT asked Zani and his students to study the situation and whether installing an underpass would improve travel conditions for turtles and motorists.
Safety along the section of roadway has long been a concern for the DOT because motorists were swerving in the 55-mph zone to avoid turtles or were stopping to help them cross the road. The DNR’s concern focused on the difficulty wildlife had traveling between the north and south sides of the road.
Zani has a PhD from the University of Oregon in 1999 in the field of herpetology and has published scientific studies on over 70 different species of reptiles, primarily lizards and turtles.
For more information about the program and FBR, email info_fbr@yahoo.com or check out FBR’s Facebook page.