Integrating wildlife corridor requirements into urban planning creates habitat connectivity that enables animal movement, reduces road mortality and maintains populations in fragmented urban landscapes.
Wildlife corridor planning addresses the systemic cause of much urban wildlife welfare harm — habitat fragmentation that forces animals into dangerous crossings of roads and developed areas, isolates populations below viable size, and prevents access to seasonal food resources. Planning requirements for wildlife corridor protection and creation transform individual welfare interventions (hedgehog holes in fences, toad tunnels under roads) from voluntary to systematic. The cumulative welfare benefit of a planning system that routinely integrates wildlife movement into development decisions could prevent many thousands of animal deaths and much chronic welfare harm from isolation and habitat loss.