On a dark Saturday night in late August, the Chaleur Lightning hockey team had just played an exhibition game against the Miramichi Timberwolves and boarded the team bus to head back to Bathurst.
That’s when assistant coach Alex Ouellet heard the driver let out a gasp.
“Couldn’t have been more than five minutes into the drive,” said Ouellet. “I looked up and I saw a shape in front of us, and then just a loud bang right away.”
The team bus had come face to face with a moose, colliding with it on the highway. Thankfully, Ouellet said, the team and coaches walked away without injuries, aside from the driver who had a few scratches.
Wildlife crossings allow deer and moose to get across a roadway safely, without posing a danger to drivers.
But like many New Brunswickers who’ve collided or had a near-miss with a large animal, it’s not an experience Ouellet and the rest of the team will soon forget.
“I’ll definitely be, every time I’m travelling those roads, thinking about it for sure,” he said, “especially in the evening and at night.”
Coincidentally, that same week, the province announced it was adding two new wildlife crossings, on that very stretch of highway.
Wildlife tunnels
The province does have methods of trying to prevent moose from wandering onto roadways, including both wildlife fencing and wildlife crossings or tunnels.
Transportation Minister Chuck Chiasson said the province decides where to put these mitigation measures based on collision data from law enforcement.
“We take collision data and we try and figure out where are the hot spots, where do we need to give the most attention to,” he said.
Currently, both sides of 331 kilometres of New Brunswick highways are lined with wildlife fencing.
“But you can’t put an endless amount of moose fencing and stop the animals, the wildlife from actually, travelling through their territory and finding food and foraging,” said Chiasson. “And since they don’t listen very well, we have to do that in a way that’s non-intrusive for them.”
There are 82 wildlife crossings, or concrete tunnels under the highway, in different parts of New Brunswick. That includes two being installed in summer 2026 on Route 8 between Miramichi and Bathurst.
The tunnels are more than four metres tall and four meters wide and made up of 11 pre-fabricated concrete segments.
“I would say that you could drive a tractor-trailer through it, it’s that big,” said Chiasson.
When the province first installed wildlife tunnels more than 15 years ago on Route 7 between Saint John and Fredericton, it studied the impact.
“Bear, moose, deer, and I found all three of those were fairly quickly starting to use them within a couple weeks once they sort of found them, explored them and realized it was safe to go through,” said Graham Forbes, a wildlife ecologist and professor at the University of New Brunswick who led the research at the time.
Forbes said the tunnels have to be intuitive for animals to use them.
“When they first come across the fence, if they travel along the fence, these fences are designed so they pinch in a little bit towards the road … and there’s type of fence that sort of funnels them towards the underpass,” he explained.
“So that helps push them towards that area … Once they learn it, they know where it is and go to it anytime they want.”
Not just moose
The tunnels weren’t just used by large animals, Forbes found.
“I had pictures of beaver going through, ducks going through, bats, all sorts of things use these underpasses,” he said. “So I don’t think they’re just used by the large mammals by any means. Everything will use them, skunks, raccoon.”
The Department of Transportation hasn’t seen a noticeable drop in collisions because of the tunnels, with 2024 numbers the highest in recent data at 409 collisions. Of those, 65 of those caused injuries and one was fatal.
“Our goal is to make sure that people can travel in safety, and so we try and get the mitigation put in place where we see the most collisions,” said Chiasson. “There’s other options that we have to look at and some a lot of that is clearing the brush back so that there’s better guidelines.”
Ouellet said he and the Chaleur Lightning team will still have to travel that same stretch of highway for games.
“It was actually just before some moose fencing started … maybe that could have helped, who knows,” he said. “I know driving, when I’m in areas where there is moose fencing, I do feel a little bit more comfortable for sure.”
Ouellet said he hopes that more fencing will be added in the area soon, but he knows it’s not realistic to prevent every crash.
“I don’t know if you can fully, 100 per cent, keep them in there no matter what,” he said. “You try to make the best of a tough situation and do the most preventative measures you can.”
