DEATH TRAP THE PIGE O N RIV ER GO RG E SECT I O N O F IN TER STATE 40 IS O NE O F TH E D E A D L I E ST STRETCHE S OF INT ERSTATE IN T H E COUNTRY. A N EW P ROJECT H O PE S TO M A K E IT SAFE R FO R H U MA NS A ND W IL D L I F E . BY WILL HARLAN
THE WIGGLES. THAT’S WHAT MY
five-year-old son called the sinuous stretch of Interstate 40 near the North Carolina-Tennessee border when we first drove it together. The highway snakes back and forth through a narrow, steep-walled gorge, roughly following the Pigeon River on the border of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Rock faces rise sharply from the road, and landslides are common. Tractor trailers often overturn. Two long tunnels make
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it even more treacherous. It’s one of the deadliest 28 miles in the country—for humans and wildlife. My toddler giggled as our car careened back and forth through the gorge, but my wife was tense. A cold rain began to fall, and I white-knuckled the wheel as semi-trailers rumbled past. “What’s that?” my son asked. He pointed to a black blob of fur on the shoulder. I didn’t say anything, but he already knew: it was a dead bear cub.
Blood trickled out from the carcass onto the wet road. Interstate 40 stretches 2,560 miles from California to the Eastern coast, but the Pigeon River Gorge section has more accidents and fatalities than any other section. More than 26,000 vehicles pass through the gorge each day, and that number continues to rise. This stretch of interstate is adjacent to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited and the second most popular park in the country. An estimated 1,900 black bears call the park home. The Smokies are the largest black bear refuge in Appalachia. But bears and other animals don’t recognize park boundaries. They travel in search of food, shelter, and mates. To do this, that means they have to cross roads like interstate 40. More than 90 percent of male black bears and 50 percent of female black bears travel outside the park boundary each year, including through the Pigeon River Gorge.
Bears, deer, elk, and other wildlife have been moving across this gorge for millennia. It wasn’t until 1968 that a four-lane interstate with walls and barriers was built through it, interrupting a major wildlife corridor for the eastern U.S. Construction crews cut the road through the mountainside and sheared steep rock walls along the route. Animals that successfully make it across concrete dividers and four lanes of interstate can find themselves pinched between traffic and impassable cliffs on a very narrow shoulder. Bear fatalities have quadrupled MOR E THAN 2 6 ,0 0 0 VEHI CLES PASS THR OU GH THE GOR GE EACH D AY, AND THAT NU MBER CONTI NU ES TO R I SE. THI S STR ETCH OF I NTER STATE I S AD JACENT TO GR EAT SMOKY MOU NTAI NS NATI ONAL PAR K, THE MOST VI SI TED AND THE SECOND MOST POPU LAR PAR K I N THE COU NTRY.
A N E S T I M AT E D 7 0 B E A R S A R E K I L L E D A N N U A L L Y ON A WINDING 28-MILE STRETCH OF I-40. PHOTO C O U R T E S Y O F N AT I O N A L PA R K S C O N S E R VA T I O N A S S O C I AT I O N A N D W I L D L A N D S N E T W O R K
