Box Rope Ladder Crossing

Box Rope Ladder Crossing is one of many designs for habitat conservation and to assist in avoiding the wildlife-vehicle collision.

Wildlife crossings over or under roads may be installed to reduce the impact of the road on animal mortality and on habitat fragmentation. They are typically in the form of tunnels or bridges of various forms. These may not be suited for mammals that spend the majority of their time in trees higher up. Rope bridges have been tested in the United States and Australia to interconnect habitat and reduce road mortality for arboreal mammal species. Rather than looking at population-level effects or implications on road fatality, most monitoring takes the form of tracking the use of crossings.

 The Box Rope Ladder Crossing has been designed for the protection of the sugar glider, the squirrel glider and also the ringtail possum.  The design caters for these small marsupials so they can be connected with their natural habitat which has been destroyed by main highways being built.

The ladder is made in such a way that the marsupials are able to glide and land on the top parts of the ladder.  As a rule they would mainly move across the top section of this Box Ladder and when in danger by our “night owl” they quickly dive into the Box Ladder using the cage as protection.

These ladders can sometimes be anywhere from 40 to 80 metres long and are made in 10 metre segments to allow easy installation.