Of 700,000 traffic crashes in California each year, a report by Fraser Shilling, the co-director of the Road Ecology Center at the UC Davis, Fraser Shilling, says that 6,000 involve wildlife. And disproportionate number of those incidents, which usually lead to animals' deaths, occur on Interstate 280 between San Francisco and San Jose. That roadway, as Schilling and his team were able to pinpoint, saw an "exceptionally high concentrations of deer-vehicle conflict."

Shilling directs the California Roadkill Observation System, a volunteer roadkill reporting operation, which provided some of his data. For further information, CBS 5 reports that Shilling's team at Davis used GPS collars and wildlife cameras to follow migration patterns. The group hopes to limit the number of animals and car collisions by sharing their research with Caltrans: Specifically, Shilling has suggested options from lower speed limits in problem areas to dedicated wildlife crossings, according to the Assosciated Press. The researcher has even proposed a rope bridge for safe squirrel crossing.

“So, our protected spaces aren’t so protected, whether it’s an open space in the Bay Area or in the national parks," a news release quotes Shilling. “Traffic is leading to the loss of wildlife of a lot of different stripes.”

"By significantly increasing the systematic treatment of these hotspots and stretches of highway with high rates of collisions, Caltrans and other entities can contribute to driver safety and improve the environmental sustainability of the state highway system," the report states. Its findings include one more NorCal hotspot near to home: Interstate 80 between Davis and Sacramento another area where animal/car collisions were high.