Mon 31 Jul 2006
by JIM DULLENTY
News-Argus Staff Writer
It would be hard to use moose, elk and deer for roadside animal detection testing at the Lewistown Municipal Airport, so researchers are turning to horses and llamas as substitutes.
Matt Blank (left) and Marcel Huijser, PhD, were in Lewistown last week to oversee preparations for testing of wild animal detection systems at Lewistown Municipal Airport.
Matt Blank, research associate, and Dr. Marcel Huijser, research ecologist, said the horses and llamas will be used in wild animal detection system testing to start in mid-August under the auspices of the Western Transportation Institute, headquartered in Bozeman.
This testing, to determine if automobiles can be equipped with a device that warns of wild animals on the road ahead thereby reducing animal-auto collisions, is being done at the driving range and drag strip on the airport’s west side.
Blank and Huijser said groundbreaking for the project, called the Roadside Animal Detection System test bed (RADS), was done in May and preparations are nearly complete.
WTI established a small portable mobile office near the project, the two researchers said. Poles have been erected which will hold the detection equipment to be tested. A 400-foot by 190-foot wire corral with wood posts has been built around the test site and two smaller corrals are to hold the animals.
“We will have horses to simulate moose and elk and llamas to simulate deer,” said Huijser. He said there will never be more than about six of each at the airport at any one time.
The livestock will be provided by a local owner who will transport them to and from the site and be responsible for their care while there. The placement of food, water and shelter will help maximize the movement of the animals, Blank said.
He said the researchers want the animals to mill about to simulate conditions along roadsides where wild animals often cross roads and cause accidents.
The animals will be on site five to ten days in a row but researchers won’t be sure of the exact length of time until testing begins, Huijser said.
Domesticated elk and deer were not used for the testing because of the regulations dealing with keeping such animals in captivity, Huijser said. He said someone has to take care of them and it is easier to find horse and llama owners who will care for their animals.
“The animals should arrive in late August and we hope to start testing after they get there,” said Blank.
The testing will continue to early summer next year. Some vendors have lent equipment to the research team for testing. Once the testing is done, that equipment will be returned. Other equipment was purchased and that may be left there, Blank said.
“The infrastructure will remain in place so we can test in years to come the next generation of (detection) systems,” said Blank. He said some of the equipment may be used to test on a real roadside.
There will be no permanent personnel at the site. Data collected from the testing will be transmitted electronically to WTI’s offices in Bozeman. Some also will be stored in computer hard drives at the site and it will be accessed later.
Huijser, who works out of a WTI office in Missoula, said he has been working on this project since 2001. Funding was acquired in August-September 2004 and since then it has been spent on planning, preparations and construction at the site.
About $200,000 of the total $430,000 annual budget was spent at the site. These are real dollars, Huijser said. Added to that are in-kind contributions which bring the total for the project to $830,000, he said. Central Electric, Lewistown, was prime contractor.
In August, the sensors will be installed. Some detectors use passive or active infra-red, others use microwave and some use lasers. An infrared camera system at the site can observe the animals day and night.
When used in real highway situations, a sensor detects an animal triggering a warning device in a car to allow the driver to know an animal is on or near the road ahead. One reason the Lewistown location was chosen, Huijser said, is to allow these systems to be tested in all kinds of weather
