Guilford Installs Wildlife Corridor Signage
Based on our recently conducted Natural Resource Inventory, and with the help of concerned local citizens, the Guilford Conservation Commission identified a stretch of Guilford Center Road that was particularly susceptible to collisions between motor vehicles and wildlife attempting to cross the road. The road divided two forest blocks that included a power line and a wetland. A Conservation Commissioner worked with the town's Road Commissioner to research what kinds of signage were available. When we did not find a suitable sign, another Commissioner volunteered to create a PDF design with the words "Wildlife Corridor" and silhouettes of a bear and a fox. Our design was submitted to the sign division of WorkSafe in Barre, Vermont, a company that provides signage to many Vermont towns. They accepted our design and produced two signs, which were installed in March 2024 by the Guilford town road crew, one at each end of the Wildlife Corridor.
Guilford
wildlife
Our 2022-2030 Town Plan includes language about raising local awareness of wildlife corridors and the importance of our town's geographical location in relation to the movement of wildlife across Vermont's landscape. Our Commission felt the signs were important not only to protect wildlife trying to cross the road, but also to raise awareness of wildlife corridors in Guilford. We highlighted the project with a display at our 2024 Town Meeting. The display included an otter that had been killed in this corridor and preserved by a local taxidermist and a 20-minute video loop of many different kinds of wildlife recorded on trail cameras set up in this wildlife corridor. Children and adults alike were captivated by this video. We also wrote about the project in our Guilford Gazette to further raise awareness of the project and the corridor.
Town Road Commissioner
Town Highway Road Crew
A small group of Conservation Commissioners worked on this project together. The cooperation and advice of the Town Road Commissioner together with the road crew made it possible.
When we didn't find a sign in the WorkSafe catalog that addressed our need, we designed our own sign and Vermont WorkSafe cooperated with us in using our design to create the signs.
