| Concerns about highway impacts upon large and medium-sized mammals have led to the development of several new technologies to prevent these animals from entering the highway corridor. We assessed the performance of electrified mats, or "electromats", a new alternative to traditional metal-rail cattle guards to prevent wildlife from entering the highway from ungated access roads. We used automatic camera stations to monitor wildlife responses at 4 electromat sites within a 2.5 mile wildlife exclusion fence project near San Luis Obispo, California. Continual monitoring from July 2012 through July 2014 (totaling 2,149 survey nights) documented 482 visitation events by large and medium-sized mammals, with Mule Deer and Gray Fox accounting for the most detections. On some occasions, animals attempting to cross the electromats were shocked and later showed hesitation to cross again or avoided the mat altogether, but on other occasions animals crossed the electromat without evident shock. Animals that learned to successfully cross the electromats tended to return repeatedly, greatly inflating the proportion of detection events that resulted in successful crossings. Based on our monitoring data, we have developed several recommendations to the design and deployment of electromats that will likely make this technology more effective. |