Wild animals, while migrating from the Arkhangelsk Region to wintering ground and back often fall prey of accidents on the roads.

      Representatives of the traffic police and the authorities of the neighbouring Vologda Region have put the issue of building ecoducts on an agenda. The wildlife bridges, aka ecoducts are meant to provide animals with the possibility of safely crossing roads in places of their most active migration.

      Ecoducts made their appearance in the Southern Europe in the 1950s, and then extended worldwide. So far Russia has no experience of building such constructions focused on adaptation to animals’ natural habitability conditions.

      It is the first project of the kind in Russia, so all the documentation has to be made from zero. Such a bridge is put over a roadbed and is planted with trees. It will cost no less than 150 million rubles. Thus there is a controversy regarding what is more important: the need to repair old highways for cars or to create bridges for safety of wild animals and prevention of road accidents.

      There is also an alternative method for solving the issue: the so-called electronic shepherd was set up on the route Vologda - New Ladoga. The site was equipped with a blockage with electric current. The current load makes only 12 volts, so it is dangerous neither for animals nor for people. But elks have already started avoiding this site of the road, thus preventing new elk accidents in this area.