EVARO - The People's Way, otherwise known as U.S. Highway 93 as it passes through the Flathead Indian Reservation, very much caters to critters, too, it appears.

Many folks like the moose story best.

When the large wildlife overpass north of here above the highway opened for its furry traffic, what appeared to be a bull moose was the first to christen it.

Whisper Camel's favorite photographs, however, taken by surveillance cameras, don't always come from the most visible of the 41 wildlife crossings between Evaro and Polson.

"My favorites are of the females with their young," says Camel, a wildlife biologist with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. "I'm seeing them all the time."

They remind her of human mothers teaching their children how to safely cross a street.

"It's mostly deer and black bears," she says. "Sometimes the does will lie down in the culvert, and their fawns will run back and forth through it. They're definitely learning and teaching."

The goal of the crossings, of course, is to reduce the number of animal-vehicle collisions, which take a toll not only on the wildlife population, but cause more than $1 billion in automotive damages in the U.S. each year.