I've always valued consciousness in living things. When I was young, I spent tons of time in the woods. As I got older, I held on to that love of nature, but my wildlife-connectivity activism really started in 2013 after I saw a deer get hit by a car.

It was Labor Day weekend, and my husband and I were driving back from a mountain biking trip when we saw a doe cross the street. I pulled over, not knowing if another deer was going to follow. Instead, the original doe, spooked, ran back into the road just as a car came around a curve. My husband and I closed our eyes in fear of what was about to happen. The car stopped as quickly as it could but still slammed into the doe. When we looked up, we saw that she was stunned and struggled to get up. The car had broken her leg. When she got up, her leg just dangled. My husband and I were traumatized. At that moment, I thought, "Either that deer got hit in vain, or I have to change something."

I spent a lot of time trying to get the city of Bellingham, Washington, to pay attention to wildlife connectivity: Roads and other human-made impasses prevent some animals from moving safely to find food, shelter, and water. I talked to one of the regional staff members at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and he agreed that something needed to be done. We met with the mayor. I met with the Public Works Department, the agency that sustains roads and infrastructure. And then I got blown off for two years. They stopped returning my calls.

Things started to change when I partnered with the Mt. Baker Group of the Sierra Club's Washington State Chapter. In 2015, I started working with other volunteers from the chapter to get carcass data from the Animal Control Department, and then I found a wildlife connectivity specialist to help me use Google Earth to cross-reference spots where cars had hit animals, using GIS data. That way, the volunteers and I could tell where the wildlife corridors were and where animals were trying to cross roads.

It became hard for the city to ignore us once we had three years of hard data in hand. We made and paid for yard signs that could be displayed near the sites of wildlife collisions. One of the signs depicts a doe and a fawn and the words "Wildlife Corridor: Be Alert." Once the Public Works Department realized that we weren't backing down, the director agreed to start providing the signs. You can tell where there's a wildlife corridor because people get so frustrated by animals being hit, they put these signs up in front of their houses.

I don't do anything alone. On the chapter's wildlife committee, I collaborate with dedicated people who all work as hard as I do, and we get support from the conservation committee and the national Sierra Club.

There's disagreement in the conservation community right now about Washington's game management, which shouldn't be called "game management" anymore—it should be "wildlife management." I think we need to respect the inherent value of wild species that preceded us on the landscape, and the road signs are a part of honoring that. Nature is designed to work in balance. It's humans who have messed that up. I believe I'm helping to restore some of that balance in a very clear, science-driven way.