Alligators

September 7, 2021

Alligators

Wildlife Crossings

Maintenance > Bridge Infrastructure > Wildlife Crossings

In the process of researching bridges, infrastructure, and development, I discovered a specific type of bridge infrastructure known as a wildlife crossing. Wildlife crossings are bridges or tunnels that are constructed to span a roadway and allow animals to safely cross. This is an infrastructure project that mutually benefits both humans and wildlife.

The resulting visuals are these beautiful integrations of manmade structures and the natural world. There is something very beautiful and slightly discomforting, about seeing our boastful structures as these transient formations, which will eventually succumb to nature.Thinking about wildlife crossings within the context of "maintenance" pushes me to define what exactly are we trying to maintain by creating these? In some ways, it is not a complete repair of a bisected natural habitat. It is a means of maintaining human infrastructure, by working with the needs of our environment, rather than against them. I keep reflecting on a conversation I had with someone years ago on Earth Day, in which they declared that "...it should be called human day. The earth will be just fine once it's rid of us."Other areas of inquiry that develop for me involve the question of how animals learn to use the bridges. How to create a "user journey" for a wild animal? How do you create that, while also respecting their wildness? From loose reading, it seems as though even a narrow bridge is eventually discovered and used by many animals. Some species seem to be more trepidatious than others.

Experimental Making / A Comic

We are actively creating problems for animals. We are then actively trying to find solutions to the problems we created. The unintended consequences of our actions is something that we as a species will have to reckon with more and more, as the effects of global climate change perpetuate. Animals don't have the ability to build their own crossings. This solution can only be provided to them, by humans. I wanted to imagine that animals could exert the same type of control over environments as humans do. What if alligators tore down a school to build their own swamp; beavers construct a dam and stop up the flow of traffic; wolves could separate our suburbs to prioritize their hunting territories. In exploring this idea, I ended up writing a short first-person narrative about a girl whose school is demolished by alligators, intent on building a swamp there instead.

References

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