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In an Era of Hardening Borders, Wildlife Corridors Bridge Peoples and Species
From Costa Rica to Colorado, wildlife corridors have been about the connections people make when they care about animal mobility.
Jun 14, 2026
Driving on the Interamerican Highway from Monteverde Biological Reserve to Rincón de la Vieja National Park, I couldn’t help but notice a series of rope bridges that crossed the six lanes of traffic. Each crossing structure featured traffic warning signs with silhouette images of monkeys or sloths as nonstop flows of diesel semitrucks and electric cars zoomed by.
Costa Rica is known for its protected areas, which cover one-third of the country and function as core zones for conservation, but the “green republic” should also be recognized for its corridors. What started as an NGO effort in the 2000s when organizations like Kids Saving The Rainforest started installing aerial bridges to improve habitat connectivity later became national policy with a 2024 presidential decree requiring electrical companies to build crossing structures so that animals like howler monkeys and kinkajous avoided electrocution from using power lines. These monkey bridges also keep tropical rainforest more intact for mobile creatures.
Beyond Central America, wildlife corridors are popular in the western United States. According to recent surveys from the Environment America Research and Policy Center and the Pew Charitable Trust, respondents approve creating more wildlife crossings at rates of 85-90%. And that support spans the political spectrum. In March 2026, the Idaho State Legislature passed Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 124, officially supporting the development of wildlife crossing infrastructure, such as highway overpasses and underpasses, to reduce animal-vehicle collisions. In December 2026, California’s Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing is set to be completed across 10 lanes of Los Angeles freeway, making it the largest structure in the world.
Wildlife corridors could receive a financial boost by the bipartisan BUILD America 250 bill, considered by US House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this week. If passed, it would increase funding for the Federal Highway Administration’s very popular Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program (WCPP) to $80 million annually ($400 million total). The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocated $350 million to 35 projects across 30 states, but demand far exceeded with $500 million in requests.
Today, the benefits of conserving wildlife corridors might be just as much about the social as the biological.
If we’re living in a worldwide golden age for wildlife corridors, where did this idea come from? I trace the origins of this dominant conservation strategy in my new book, Borders of Biodiversity: How Gray Wolves, Monarch Butterflies, and Giant Sequoia Transformed Large Landscape Conservation, published by University of North Carolina Press.
In the 1970s and 1980s, new technologies provided windows into animal mobility. For wolves, radio- and satellite- telemetry allowed US biologist Diane Boyd and Canadian biologist Paul Paquet to track the interchange of dispersing juveniles along the Rockies. For example, Boyd collared wolf #8551, named Kay, west of Glacier National Park; the wolf turned up six months later dead after it was legally shot near Pouce Coupe, British Columbia. The 600-mile movement northward was interesting scientifically because it was two-thirds of the way to the Yukon Territory, but Kay’s movement also had major conservation implications. Wildlife corridors facilitated wolf dispersals; transborder dispersals could facilitate wolf recovery under the Endangered Species Act.
In the 1990s, wildlife corridors were thought of as proactive tools against habitat fragmentation. Responding to Boyd and Paquet’s work, conservationists in Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming created the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative in 1993 to keep core areas—like Yellowstone National Park or Banff National Park—connected. Projects included lobbying the Canadian government to build wildlife overpasses and underpasses along the Trans-Canada Highway, which Y2Y founder Harvey Locke called the “Berlin Wall of Biodiversity” for its high rate of wolf and elk fatalities. Or investing in predator-deterrence tools like range riding and electrified fladry fencing for ranching communities so wolves and grizzlies could use rural spaces as biological passageways.
By the 2000s, however, wildlife corridors were also understood to help with climate adaptation in a warming world. A scientific meta-analysis documented that of 4,000 animals recently tracked, almost three-quarters of them shifted their ranges to cooler lands or waters. Terrestrial species, on average, were moving 12 miles (or 20 kilometers) every decade toward the poles. Animals relocate to adapt.
Today, the benefits of conserving wildlife corridors might be just as much about the social as the biological. In 2012, Ben Bobowski of Rocky Mountain National Park and Yaxine María Arias Núñez of Santa Elena Biological Reserve created a series of personnel exchanges between the two protected areas called the Naturalmente Juntos-Naturally Together Project. Their connection was based on bird banding studies that revealed 150 bird species, like yellow warblers, migrated along the Continental Divide between Colorado and Costa Rica. In 2015, Rocky and Santa Elena entered a formal sistering agreement.
From Costa Rica to Colorado, wildlife corridors have been about the connections people make when they care about animal mobility. In an era of border-hardening nationalism, corridors can help people of different nationalities facilitate solidarities among shared species.
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GOP Ripped for 'Grotesque' Farm Bill Full of 'Industry-Backed Poison Pills'
"Chairman Thompson appears poised to check off industry's cruel wish list," one critic warned.
Feb 13, 2026
Advocates for animal welfare, environmental protection, public health, and small family farms fiercely condemned various "industry-backed poison pills" in the long-awaited Farm Bill draft unveiled Friday by a key Republican in the US House of Representatives.
"A new Farm Bill is long overdue, and the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 is an important step forward in providing certainty to our farmers, ranchers, and rural communities," said House Committee on Agriculture Chair Glenn "GT" Thompson (R-Pa.) in a statement.
While Thompson has scheduled a markup of the 802-page proposal for February 23, critics aren't waiting to pick apart the bill, which aligns with a 2024 GOP proposal that was also sharply rebuked. The panel's ranking member, Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), said that from what she has seen so far, the new legislation "fails to meet the moment facing farmers and working people."
"Farmers need Congress to act swiftly to end inflationary tariffs, stabilize trade relationships, expand domestic market opportunities like year-round E15, and help lower input costs," Craig stressed. "The Republican majority instead chose to ignore Democratic priorities and focus on pushing a shell of a farm bill with poison pills that complicates if not derails chances of getting anything done. I strongly urge my Republican colleagues to drop the political charade and work with House Democrats on a truly bipartisan bill to address the very real problems farm country is experiencing right now—before it's too late."
Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, similarly blasted the GOP legislation on Friday, declaring that "this Republican Farm Bill proposal is a grotesque, record-breaking giveaway to the pesticide industry that will free Big Ag to accelerate the flow of dangerous poisons into our nation's food supply and waterways."
"This bill would block people suffering from pesticide-linked cancers from suing pesticide makers, eviscerate the EPA's ability to protect rivers and streams from direct pesticide pollution, and give the pesticide industry an unprecedented veto over extinction-preventing safeguards for our nation's most endangered wildlife," he said, referring to the Environmental Protection Agency.
"If Congress passes this monstrosity, it will speed our march toward the dawn of a very real silent spring, a day without fluttering butterflies, chirping frogs, or the chorus of birds at sunrise," Hartl warned. "No one voted for Republicans to allow foreign-owned pesticide conglomerates to dominate the policies that impact the safety of the food every American eats. But this bill leaves no doubt that's exactly who is calling all the shots."
Food & Water Watch (FWW) managing director of policy and litigation Mitch Jones also sounded the alarm about industry-friendly poison pills, arguing that any draft containing the "Cancer Gag Act" that would shield pesticide companies from liability or the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression Act—which would block state and local policies designed to protect animal welfare, farm workers, and food safety—"must be dead on arrival."
Sara Amundson, president of Humane World Action Fund—formerly called Humane Society Legislative Fund—also made a case against targeting state restrictions for animals like Proposition 12 in California, which the US Supreme Court let stand in 2023, in response to a challenge by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation.
"Once again, the House Agriculture Committee Republican majority is bending to the will of a backwards-facing segment of the pork industry by trying to force through a measure to override the preferences of voters in more than a dozen states, upend the decisions of courts all the way up to the Supreme Court, and trample states' rights all at the same time," Amundson said Friday.
The National Family Farm Coalition highlighted that "instead of addressing the widespread concerns of family-scale farmers—ensuring fair prices for farmers, improving credit access, addressing corporate land consolidation, and creating a trade environment that benefits producers—this draft perpetuates the status quo that enriches and empowers corporate agribusiness. The result is an accelerating farm crisis that continues to hollow out rural communities across the US."
Thompson also faced outrage over other policies left out of the GOP legislation—particularly from those calling for the restoration of $187 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump forced through last year with their so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (HR 1).
"HR 1 shifts unprecedented costs to already cash-strapped states, expands time limits, and strips food benefits away from caregivers, veterans, older workers, people experiencing homelessness, and humanitarian-based noncitizens," noted Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center.
"HR 1 is an unforgiving assault on America's hungry, deliberately dismantling our nation's first line of defense against hunger," she continued. "Yet, when given the opportunity to correct this harm in the latest Farm Bill proposal, Chairman Thompson unveiled a package that will only deepen hunger instead of fixing it. Hunger is not something Congress can afford to ignore."
Jones of FWW said that "families and farmers are hungry for federal policy that supports small- and mid-sized producers and keeps food affordable. Instead, Chairman Thompson appears poised to check off industry's cruel wish list."
"America needs a fair Farm Bill," he emphasized. "It is imperative that this Farm Bill repeal all Trump SNAP cuts and restore full funding to this critical nutrition program; stop the proliferation of factory farms; and support the transition to sustainable, affordable food."
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I Rescued 4 Chickens From Abuse; Now I’m the One Facing a Felony Trial
I refuse to accept that helping a few baby birds makes me a criminal, let alone a dangerous one.
Sep 09, 2025
As I write this, a GPS ankle monitor shows law enforcement exactly where I am. This invasive device has been strapped to my leg for nearly two years. It has come with me to family dinners, to doctors’ appointments, to university classes, and more. I have been forced to wear it in order to remain free pending a criminal trial, which begins next week. I face nearly half a decade in jail.
My trial is expected to last several weeks, though there is no doubt that I did what prosecutors say. My alleged crime? Taking less than $25 worth of chicken. This wouldn’t normally lead to felony charges or a government-monitored GPS tracking device. But, you see, the four chickens I took were alive.
In the city of Petaluma, about an hour north of San Francisco, nestled between a Subway and a Starbucks, lies a heavily guarded fortress. Nearly every night of the week, more than 40,000 live birds are driven through its gates. In the mornings, their deceased and dismembered bodies are wrapped in plastic, decorated with claims about sustainability, animal welfare, and a lack of antibiotics. Finally, they’re stamped with the brand names “Rocky the Free Range Chicken” and “Rosie the Organic Chicken.” By the time their bodies reenter the outside world, shipped to grocery stores like Safeway and Trader Joe’s, the birds have been thoroughly objectified, their suffering repackaged as ethical consumption.
This fortress is the Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse, a subsidiary of Perdue, one of the nation’s largest poultry producers. In important ways, Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry represents the worst of animal agriculture. Its branding is frighteningly deceptive, the company a master of manipulative marketing. Petaluma Poultry touts the supposed “luxuries” its chickens enjoy, posting seemingly staged videos of birds frolicking in the grass while, in reality, the birds live and die in factory farm conditions. Factory farming is widely known to be horrific, and companies like Petaluma Poultry represent a major obstacle to stopping it: They advertise animal suffering and slaughter as moral goods.
I know how birds at Petaluma live and die because I have been inside its facilities. In 2023, as an investigator with Direct Action Everywhere, I entered multiple Petaluma Poultry facilities. On these factory farms, I found chickens crowded together in filthy barns. One facility had mortality rates more than double the industry standard. Birds were suffering from severe neglect and dying from blood infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria. An investigation of the slaughterhouse found similar trends. One night, in April 2023, over 1,000 chickens from one shipment were condemned post-slaughter when workers opened them up and found their bodies full of infection.
Since 1993, Perdue has claimed its chickens “grow up healthy.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Of the multiple facilities I’ve been inside, I haven’t seen a single chicken I’d describe with such a word. Chickens in the meat industry are systemically unhealthy. They’ve been genetically manipulated to grow three times faster and larger than natural. Their legs collapse as they struggle to hold their own weight. Their hearts fail, and their feet develop pressure sores. The poor health of the birds in Petaluma Poultry facilities is exacerbated by their poor housing conditions and lack of medical care.
In court, I will view myself simply as a representative, a body and a voice, for all of the chickens who have been wronged by Perdue, and by the animal agriculture industry as a whole.
Much of what I have documented at Petaluma Poultry’s facilities is criminal animal cruelty in the state of California. However, repeated reports to law enforcement, over multiple years, have not resulted in any enforcement. Haunted by the knowledge of the immense violence within, I entered Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse on June 13, 2023. Partially disguised as a worker, I stepped into the cool night and approached a truck stacked high with crates crammed full with baby chickens. I rescued four of them, including one I named Poppy, who had an injured toe, a body covered in scratches, and intestines filled with parasites. I got all four birds veterinary care and shared their stories, asking members of the public to join me in calling for immediate action from law enforcement.
The rescue of four little hens finally sparked law enforcement intervention. However, instead of investigating years of reported criminal animal cruelty, law enforcement set off on a mission to gather evidence on what was likely the first act of compassion to be carried out within the slaughterhouse’s carefully constructed walls—and to charge me with crimes.
Months after the rescue, as I was walking toward the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office to once again file a report of documented animal cruelty at Petaluma Poultry, I was placed in handcuffs and arrested on seven counts of felony conspiracy. I was told about warrants obtained to access my cell-phone data and other records. Though some charges have since been dismissed or consolidated, I still face one felony, three misdemeanors, and nearly five years in jail. I have been forced to wear a GPS ankle monitor and adhere to other harsh pretrial release conditions for nearly two years because the government is afraid I might rescue more birds.
Why? It’s certainly not the monetary value of the birds. The value of a relatively healthy chicken raised in agriculture is only a few dollars, and the routine deaths of thousands before they even reach slaughter is deemed the cost of business. Moreover, there are so many animals in these facilities, it is unlikely anyone would have even noticed four chickens were gone if I had not publicized it. Instead, what is threatening is the idea inherent in my actions: that animals are individuals with lives worth living.
I’m a 23-year-old university student. I’ve been rescuing animals from abuse since the age of 11, when I founded my nonprofit, Happy Hen Animal Sanctuary. In the past, I’ve been able to work with law enforcement. Together, we’ve rescued roosters from illegal cockfighting rings and placed farmed animals in loving forever homes. But now, for saving four chickens, my entire future is at stake.
As I’ve gone to court over the past 20 months, represented by the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project, it has become obvious that the prosecutors are trying to make an example out of me to scare other concerned members of the public. But that’s okay. Let me be an example. Let me be an example of courage in the face of repression and of compassion in the face of violence. Let me be an example of just how impossible it will be to stop the movement for animal rights.
I will not apologize for my actions. I will not hang my head in shame. I refuse to accept that helping a few baby birds makes me a criminal, let alone a dangerous one. To apologize would be to say that Poppy, Ivy, Aster, and Azalea deserved the cruelty inflicted on them. It would be to say they deserved to shiver in a crate, covered in scrapes and bruises, as they were eaten alive by parasites. Any apology would be a lie. I am not sorry I saved their lives.
Next week, I will be taking this case to trial. In court, I will view myself simply as a representative, a body and a voice, for all of the chickens who have been wronged by Perdue, and by the animal agriculture industry as a whole. I will tell the jury about the birds I rescued, and the birds failed by Sonoma County law enforcement.
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