"Head out on the highway..."

"Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
In whatever comes our way"
--Born To Be Wild--

Back in the early 1980s, while pursuing a Master of Science degree at Seton Hall University, I spent two years live trapping white-footed deer mice (Peromyscus leucopus) on the medians and in the adjacent woods along Interstates 287 and 78. My goal was to see if the mice crossed the roadways in their wanderings. I trapped and tagged well over 150 white-footed deer mice as well as short-tailed shrews, voles, and even flying squirrels. Each of the mice would get a tag in the ear and have one or two toes clipped as a secondary means of identification. (The shrews were almost always dead in the live traps because of their hyperactive life styles but not after they had thoroughly soiled the traps, the voles were set free to roam as they wished, and the flying squirrels were petted and admired for their sleek coats before being allowed to scamper up the nearest tree.)

As a result of that study, I learned that damn few (if any) mice crossed the road either intentionally or successfully. Only one brave (lucky?) individual was caught on both sides of the highway’s two lanes and shoulder. Whether they didn’t venture across the road because of the hawks and owls that would have snapped them up when out in the open or they became nothing more than furred Frisbees if they did make the attempt, I did not discover.

Because of that work, I find this piece of new interesting:
Highway Habitats: Where Rodents Thrive

While I did achieve my goal of receiving my MS in Ecology/Wildlife Biology (possibly the only one Seton hall has ever granted in that field), I have just one question: Where the hell is my grant? Now that I have the time to do a real study, I’ve no affiliation that could help fund such a venture. *sigh*