Talk on the Wild Side
with Brent Setchell

Transcription

Vikky Locke

Hi, I’m Vikki Locke, with CT Communications, and this is Talk on the Wild Side, brought you by Florida Wildlife Federation, and today we’re speaking with Brent Setchell. He is a district drainage engineer with the Florida Department of Transportation District One. Hi, Brent.

Brent Setchell

Good afternoon. How are you?

Vikky Locke

I’ve got to tell you, before meeting you I used to think of the DOT as two things: orange cones and road work signs. That’s it! And potholes. But apparently, conservation and the DOT go hand-in-hand, and you’re here to kind of explain a little bit about that.

Brent Setchell

Certainly, yes. Our mission statement is to help preserve the environment and so we do quite a lot of things to help fulfill that mission including wildlife crossings.

Vikky Locke

And you build bridges.

Brent Setchell

That’s correct, we have quite a number of bridges across the state and more recently we’ve been building bridges dedicated to just crossing wildlife underneath them.

Vikky Locke

I had no idea that that was part of what you do. It’s not only bridge construction, and the plans, and everything that goes into that, it’s not only to protect motorists but to protect wildlife too, so how does that work?

Brent Setchell

Absolutely. Just as you mentioned, we are all about safety at the Florida Department of Transportation, that’s one of our number one priorities both for the motorists as well as for protecting wildlife. When we have an area where wildlife is frequently getting hit by vehicles, unfortunately, that’s a hazard for the motorist as they could hit another car and spin out or whatever it is. Providing that wildlife connectivity, with a bridge or a wildlife crossing, allows protecting both the motorist as well as the wildlife.

Vikky Locke

You said earlier, we chatted before, that you also deal with AI.

Brent Setchell

Yeah, so we have a number of tools that we can utilize to help us with wildlife crossings. Getting back to the bridges, we can do a lot of easy fixes or easy solutions. When we’re replacing a bridge, we can make the new bridge just a little bit longer and provide shelves or benches on either side that will accommodate wildlife to easily pass underneath. We may have to raise the bridge profile up a little bit to provide more vertical clearance underneath the bridge but it’s fairly cost-effective for us to do that as an easy solution again to accommodate better wildlife movement.

As you were alluding to, we have other sections of roadway where wildlife is. We’re trying to help the drivers, warn the drivers, that they’re approaching the roadway, and so in the past, we’ve used what they call “active infrared sensors” which are essentially a kind of laser beam, like the one on your garage door sensor. When something walks in front of the laser beam, it triggers the garage door to go up and we used those to trigger a sign that flashes and warns drivers that there’s a potential for wildlife on the roadway. With the advances in technology, recently, we’ve moved to a newer technology which uses radar as well as thermal cameras to help again see that wildlife, anticipate that wildlife that’s approaching the roadway, and then, can I get and trigger that sign? and then as part of that, we can use artificial intelligence, or AI, to identify that wildlife and even the types of wildlife. Whether it’s actually a XX blue that might have come up to the roadway in grace or what it may end up doing so, we can utilize artificial intelligence to help us identify that wildlife.

Vikky Locke

And you have a website that I think is http://swflroads.com.

Brent Setchell

That’s correct. Tha’s our District One and if you scroll down on the left-hand side you see a link for our Wildlife Bridge Crossings. When you get into that website it’s essentially a GIS map. All the green dots represent bridges where we’ve monitored for wildlife and documented wildlife utilizing our existing bridges. When you click on one of the green dots you can then see the information about the bridge related to the wildlife crossing features and then also there’s a link there for the photo collection to be able to go and see which wildlife actually was crossing. Today we have over 5,000 pictures of videos of wildlife utilizing our crossings.

Vikky Locke

What’s the craziest or strangest or biggest animal that you’ve ever come across?

Brent Setchell

There’s definitely been some very large alligators and black bears. Black bears are over five hundred pounds, there are big guys there; and then we’ve got a peacock, which is an unusual one; and a couple of different types of foxes, which are pretty rare. We have a red fox and a gray fox in Florida and that was kind of neat to see on there. We’ve got an iguana walking through one of them so it’s been pretty fascinating to see the different wildlife going through there.

Vikky Locke

And you’re an eagle scouter, right?

Brent Setchell

That is correct, yes.

Vikky Locke

Did that play a role in dealing with wildlife and conservation?

Brent Setchell

Certainly, I think growing up and doing a lot of camping certainly helped my passion for protecting the environment and specifically wildlife. I like to think that there’s many folks here at FDOT that want to help do the right thing and make sure again that we’re not only protecting the motorists but can do our part in providing wildlife connectivity and protecting the environment.

Vikky Locke

And you started out as an engineering student at the University of Florida, correct?

Brent Setchell

University of Central Florida, in Orlando.

Vikky Locke

When did you decide that you wanted to change paths?

Brent Setchell

That’s interesting. I originally started out in aerospace engineering. I’ve always been passionate about rocketry and then eventually made my way to civil engineering and never looked back. It’s been great. I started in land development and, when the time was right, I switched over to working for the state, at the Florida Department of Transportation, and for the last 11 years I’ve been there, trying to influence and help where I can to promote wildlife crossings and even water quality improvement projects and other things that we can do to help protect the environment.

Vikky Locke

Well, thanks so much for being with us today. Fascinating learning so much about the DOT. Thanks so much, Brent.

Brent Setchell

Thank you.

Vikky Locke

Let’s all do our part when it comes to conservation there’s so much more we can learn. Check it out at https://floridawildlifefederation.org.