Mapping Vermont’s wildlife highway: how advanced data is helping species one road at a time

“This is our strategy for adapting nature to climate change,” said Robert Zaino, natural community ecologist with the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department.

By K. Fiegenbaum
June 9, 2024, 9:23 am

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Robert Zaino, a biologist with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, uses the BioFinder mapping platform in Barnet on Wednesday, May 1, 2024. BioFinder allows people to see connections between land that allow plants and animals to migrate as climate change continues. “High priority” wildlife road crossings are shown in dark purple. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

“(Wildlife road crossings) are our best hope for nature’s climate resilience — all things being able to move freely across the landscape,” said Zaino, natural community ecologist with the department.

The small map on their phones was BioFinder, the Agency of Natural Resources’ publicly accessible mapping database, which shows layers of data including the shape and location of every block of interior forest, wetland, specific natural community and vernal pool in the state.

Earlier this spring, the database underwent a major update that made the outlines of those habitat blocks 3,600 times more accurate. Fish & Wildlife staff say the new data will transform their efforts to support species’ abilities to move across the state: the everyday movements to find food or a mate and the larger migration afoot as species react to climate change.

The data layers were created as part of Vermont Conservation Design, a project led by Fish & Wildlife that began in 2011.

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