Alumni Alum Helps Protect Wildlife—By Connecting Their Habitats Stories You May Like Powered by Sound, Researchers Help Protect Animals Worldwide A Half-Century Ago, an Alum Had a Vision: Bring the Puffins Home Doctoral Grad Is a Leading Researcher of Wildlife Crime Gary Tabor ’81 is a leader in large landscape conservation, which mitigates the human encroachment that threatens animal life By Melissa Newcomb How does the grizzly bear cross the road? Very carefully—and sometimes, with help from Gary Tabor ’81. For four decades, the ecologist and wildlife veterinarian has worked to protect animals by combatting the ever-increasing threat of habitat fragmentation, as a global leader in a field called "large landscape conservation." Based in Bozeman, MT, Tabor—who’s also a professor of practice in CALS—has contributed to projects on every continent except Antarctica. By designing wildlife “bridges” that replicate animals’ natural pathways across roads, for example, he has helped save thousands of creatures from vehicle collisions. NDOTTabor served as an advisor for this wildlife crossing bridge project on Interstate 80 in Nevada. “Only 17% of the planet is protected land—and a lot of wildlife doesn’t live in that area,” Tabor says, noting that 70% of Africa’s wild animals are located outside designated reserves. “I believe that, from an animal health perspective, the biggest threat is that we have unprecedented levels of habitat fragmentation around the world.” In other words: the more that humans interfere with the places where animals live—like turning an undeveloped tract into residential or commercial space, building roads, or polluting water—the more that wildlife is left to face the consequences. I believe that, from an animal health perspective, the biggest threat is that we have unprecedented levels of habitat fragmentation around the world. In 2007, Tabor founded the nonprofit Center for Large Landscape Conservation to address that very issue. It conducts its own large-scale conservation work and supports similar efforts by other groups worldwide—helping to protect hundreds of millions of acres and countless species. Additionally, he chairs the Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Commission on Protected Areas. The CALS alum, who holds a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Penn, has also done his share of hands-on care—treating forest elephants in Uganda, rhinos in Tanzania, and great apes in Central Africa, to name a few. Bottle-feeding moose calves in Alaska in summer 1985. On the Hill, he teaches Wildlife Corridor Conservation & Crossing Design, a spring capstone course in which students can work on real-world projects—researching them and even pitching their own solutions. “We need protected areas that are large enough for species to maintain their life cycle,” he says, “for them to move and migrate, for them to shelter, to reproduce, to have food.” Stories You May Like Powered by Sound, Researchers Help Protect Animals Worldwide A Half-Century Ago, an Alum Had a Vision: Bring the Puffins Home But as Tabor explains: what constitutes a “large” landscape is relative, depending on the location and the species that live there. In New England, it’s 200,000 acres; in Canada’s boreal forests, it’s 20 million. We need protected areas that are large enough for species to maintain their life cycle, for them to move and migrate, for them to shelter, to reproduce, to have food. In the mid-1990s, Tabor led one of the world’s first large-landscape conservation efforts, Yellowstone to Yukon. It has protected more than 24 million acres between the Northern Rocky Mountains and the Canadian Rockies—land that’s the last stronghold for the 17 largest mammals in North America, from grizzly bears to bighorn sheep. As Tabor explains, habitat fragmentation often forces animals to weave in and out of protected areas into areas that pose greater threats. An Asian elephant in Borneo; the nearby backhoe maintains roads on a oil palm plantation that fragments the animals' habitat. He estimates that—on the low end—100 million large mammals die in vehicle collisions annually; those global losses include especially vulnerable species like leopards and tigers in India, elephants in Africa, and Tasmanian devils in Australia. So how do Tabor and his colleagues convince animals to span a busy highway? They study their natural habits and instincts. Female grizzlies with cubs, for instance, would shy away from an underpass; they prefer to be higher up, so they can scan for threats. Tiny critters like salamanders and other amphibians, by contrast, need special culverts beneath a road that allow them to cross without drowning. How do Tabor and his colleagues convince animals to span a busy highway? They study their natural habits and instincts. Tabor's research helped provide a scientific basis for the Federal Highway Administration’s first-ever Wildlife Crossings Program. Established through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, it funds projects to build overpasses and underpasses in areas that have been especially perilous to wildlife. And as the program’s website notes, it doesn’t just benefit animals: the nation’s more than 1 million annual roadway collisions cost society upwards of $8 billion and cause tens of thousands of serious injuries to drivers and passengers, as well as hundreds of fatalities. “It’s all interconnected,” Tabor says of his conservation work. “Nature, animal health, and human health are all impacted together.” Top: Tabor atop Bears Hump in Waterton National Park in Alberta, Canada. (All photos provided, unless otherwise indicated.) Published January 17, 2025 Comments Doug Santoni, Class of 1983 31 Jan, 2025 I’m very grateful to the work that Mr. Tabor is doing to protect animals. I had lived in South Florida for many years, and over the time I lived there saw signficant improvements to permit Florida Panthers to utilize newly-created, “safe” corridors. I now live in Seattle, and marvel at the wildlife “bridge” built in the past decade to permit animals to safely cross I-90 in the Cascade Mountains (about an hour east of the Seattle area). Thank you, Mr. Tabor, for your very worthwhile work! Reply Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Campus & Beyond At Carl Sagan’s Final Resting Place, Admirers Pay Homage Alumni The Cornellian Behind the Slogan ‘Ithaca is Gorges’ Quizzes & Puzzles Test Your Knowledge of the Cornell Board of Trustees