Across the United States, there are many thousands of collisions between vehicles and wildlife each year, killing people and animals and causing millions of dollars in property damages. Some solutions revolve around creating bridges specifically for wildlife, from elk and mountain lions to even turtles and salamanders.

It's been estimated that collisions with wildlife in the United States kill around 200 people and injure more than 26,000 per year. Building wildlife crossings can reduce those collisions by up to 97 percent.

Back in 2021 the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided $350 million to be doled out as grants over five years on building such crossings. But the funding runs out this year, and the National Parks Conservation Association has been urging Congress to not just renew the program, but see that it provides $200 million a year going forward.

To explain the problem and associated costs with the lack of wildlife crossings today's guests are Bart Melton, senior director of NPCA's wildlife program, and Renee Callahan from ARC Solutions, a nonprofit that works to facilitate new thinking, new methods, new materials and new solutions for wildlife crossing structures.

You might not entirely appreciate the wonders and majesty of national parks unless you venture out after dark and gaze up at what often is referred to as the other half of the national park system. The view can be quite dazzling, with planets, stars, the Milky Way, and for the lucky, a comet or shooting star.

Sadly, not every park offers such dazzling views. Light pollution reaches more than a few national parks, and can really infringe on your nighttime enjoyment of the parks.

Gavin Heffernan is among those park travelers who are troubled by light pollution. He's a California-based photographer with a unique long-form time lapse style. And he's hoping this approach brings a fresh awareness to the wonders of night skies in the national parks and creates advocacy to fight light pollution and the damage it wreaks on natural habitats.

Warming oceans, pollution, more potent hurricanes, anchor drops, dredging and trawling. The Florida Reef struggles with a lot of impacts today. In fact, only about 2 percent of the reef that stretches some 350 miles from Biscayne National Park past Everglades National Park and down to Dry Tortugas National Park is covered with living coral.

For several months now at the National Parks Traveler we've been building an ongoing series of stories and podcasts focused on impacts to the Florida Reef and whether it can be saved. Today our guest is Dr. Erinn Fuller, an associate vice president for research, senior scientist, and coral health and disease program manager at the Mote Aquarium in Florida.

Dr. Fuller is on the forefront of efforts to offset impacts to the Florida Reef and restore its corals. She'll explain the various impacts to the reef and the work being done to offset them.