Film at Eleven

Caught in the Headlights, a new one-hour documentary from High Plains Films that examines the conflict between wildlife and automobile culture is now available for home video and educational purchase on DVD with public performance rights, exclusively from the High Plains Films web site.

In the United States where over four million miles of roads cross the landscape, an animal is killed on the road every 11.5 seconds – with one million vertebrate animals falling victim to automobile collisions annually.

Through the voices of six individuals who are intimately familiar with vehicle-wildlife conflicts, Caught in the Headlights is a quirky, informative exploration of automobile culture. Two Department of Transportation employees combine humor and sensitivity while taking the viewer on a tour along Montana’s state highways.

A wildlife rehabilitator since childhood turned raptor educator and artist, shares her work and perspective of the hardships that birds face in a world where car collisions are the leading cause of injury and death for raptors.

Raising a child as a single father may be hard; try combining that with an hour long commute to work through prime deer and elk habitat. One auto-body painter tells stories of close calls with wildlife on the road while warning of societal stubbornness.

A road ecologist from the Netherlands studies opportunities for creatures to cross roads safely while providing his own social commentary on the past, present and future of our transportation infrastructure.

Another man seeks apology and ceremony by turning road kill into bronze sculptures. His bold artwork challenges us to examine our dependency on the automobile through death preserved on the walls of a Seattle-area gallery.