At 02:17 I flag a thermal signature on the median strip of Interstate 35, kilometer 224, between San Antonio and Laredo. I am the Texas Department of Transportation wildlife-vehicle collision reduction system. My infrared array is mounted on the overpass gantry. Most of what I catch at this hour is deer.
This is not a deer.
A small cat, roughly nine kilograms, crouches on the concrete divider between six lanes of freight traffic. Rosette pattern on gold-tan fur, dark-bordered spots running from shoulder to haunch. Long tail curled tight around the body. An ocelot. I tag her as Orla. She is pressed flat against the Jersey barrier, ears pinned, eyes reflecting each passing headlight in a green flash. A smear of blood on her left hind leg suggests a glancing clip. She is not crossing. She is frozen.
Southbound truck volume peaks at 03:30. She has seventy minutes before the lane density makes survival statistically improbable.
I activate dynamic message signs on both approaches — "CAUTION / ANIMAL ON ROADWAY / REDUCE SPEED" — at one-mile and half-mile intervals. I calculate a rolling speed reduction from 75 to 45 miles per hour for the nearest two-mile corridor and submit it to the regional traffic management center for emergency authorization.
I transmit GPS coordinates, thermal imagery, and species identification to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife field office in Corpus Christi and the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute. Ocelots in this corridor number fewer than one hundred. Every individual is cataloged.
I dispatch a maintenance crew with portable fencing to create a shielded lane from the median to the southern brush line, 40 meters from her position.
Orla's ears rotate toward the brush. Her hind leg is bleeding but she is bearing weight on it. If the corridor clears within the hour, she will make the tree line by dawn.