Bird’s-eye View
Kiki Sonnen, President, SPBA

Our Saint Paul Bird Alliance Board of Directors is considering a community-based project to create safe wildlife passageways with transportation agencies. It’s similar to pollinator pathways but includes wildlife corridors.

We call the project Make Way for Ducklings, inspired by a children’s book about a brave Mama Mallard finding a way to move her ducklings to Boston. Crossing four lanes of traffic is a common dilemma for duck families. We seek community support for modifying transit infrastructure to accommodate wildlife overland bridges and underground culverts. The project aims to protect wildlife as they travel historic trails. It saves animal lives, makes roadways safer, reduces car crashes, and alleviates trauma, anxiety, and sadness. We envision a time when a River Otter can travel from the Mississippi River to White Bear Lake and return without harm.

With community support, this project could qualify for grants from the state and federal transit Wildlife Crossing Pilot Program, which has $350 million in funds. We’d act as community coordinator, data gatherer, and co-applicant with MNDOT or Ramsey County Public Works.

To manage the project, we need a geographic territory. We suggest an area in the East Metro bounded to the north by White Bear Lake and the Ramsey County line, to the south by the Mississippi River, to the west by 35E, and to the east by the Ramsey County line.

This territory includes Ramsey County and seven cities: White Bear Township, White Bear Lake, Gem Lake, Little Canada, North St. Paul, Maplewood, and St. Paul. It encompasses diverse communities, including low-income and working people as well as middle-class residents. Transportation options include interstates, highways, city streets, regional and state trails, bike lanes, heavy barge traffic, and railways. The Mississippi River, large lakes, creeks, wetlands, woodlots, parks, and open spaces provide habitats for various birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects.

We need funding for SPBA to develop feasibility studies, hotspot mapping, community outreach, and create liaisons with local, state, and federal partners. To launch the project, we are requesting preliminary grants of $50,000 from the McKnight Foundation, National Audubon, and St. Paul Foundation for staffing, planning, mapping, community outreach, and coordination with government agencies. This project may take three to four years.

If you’re interested in helping, contact us. You can help us start by discussing the project with community groups in our area, such as community councils, civic organizations, religious groups, schools, neighborhood groups, and environmental groups. Explain our project and goals, answer questions, and request a letter of support for our funders and agency partners. Additionally, identify hot spots where animals are hit by traffic and include that information in our mapping.

Together, we can Make Way for Ducklings!