The design planning work is already underway for a project in northern New Mexico that will see the very first building of a long-planned wildlife overpass.
The project will go up just outside the village of Cuba and will span the north to south U.S. Highway 550.
Belonging to the New Mexico Department of Transportation, the project is unusual in that a large number of wildlife crossings that have been built in the West are underpasses.
The Cuba-area overpass, which is part of the larger U.S. Highway 550 Wildlife Crossings Project, will prioritize “both human safety and wildlife conservation,” according to the NMDOT.
An engineering scoping report undertaken by the agency two years ago identified likely locations for the construction of wildlife crossing projects, and particularly focused on the area around Cuba in what was referenced as a “hotspot.”
The primary wildlife running across that stretch of the highway are elk and mule deer.
An aspect of the project will see the installation of 8-foot-tall woven wire fences running for about four miles and designed to prevent wildlife from crossing at any point until they find their way to the actual overpass itself.
A similar project undertaken by the NMDOT in 2022 saw the construction of two underpasses on Interstate 25 in Colfax County. Statistics collected by the agency ended up telling the story: in a 24-month period before the underpass, just over 100 deer carcasses were found in the vicinity. A similar period of time after the building of the underpass saw a 60% reduction in carcasses.
If all goes as planned, design work on the Cuba area project is expected to be completed by the end of next year, with actual construction launching in early 2027.
August 4, 2025
By Garry Boulard
Poster courtesy of Federal Highway Administration
