This story is part of our Quick Hits series. This series will bring you breaking news and short updates from throughout the state.

State agencies, nonprofits and the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes are teaming up to try and get $17 million in federal funding for wildlife crossings on Highway 26/287 east of Dubois.

The hope is to reduce collisions between vehicles and wildlife along an especially dangerous stretch from milepost 58 through 67, which was identified as the highest priority section in a mitigation study commissioned by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

The Wyoming Department of Transportation has applied for $17 million through the federal Wildlife Crossing Pilot Program, which is in its second cycle of funding and will be giving out nearly $150 million in grant funding this round.

Partners in the project include the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes, the WYldlife Fund, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, and the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust.

If awarded, the project will build four wildlife underpasses and one overpass. It’ll also install almost twenty miles of big game fences, put in cattle guards and improve already existing structures built to support migration.

The Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the WYldlife Fund, which are both nonprofit partners on the project, raised nearly $3 million to contribute to a match requirement for the state’s application, which was due at the start of September.

Grant awardees will tentatively be announced in January of 2025.