Can standard guardrail be used to (safely) support small wildlife exclusion fencing?
Basically we have locations where we have commercially available wildlife fencing right behind guardrail (see image below). This unfortunate set up makes maintenance of vegetation difficult, makes the ROW cluttered, seems to be redundant in basic structure, the guardrail provides a superior support structure that is not utilized while we are relying on flimsy commercial fencing to protect wildlife, etc.
The research idea would be to have someone develop/engineer a simple, durable, maintainable, effective etc way for guardrail to also have wildlife exclusion capabilities.
Im guessing there would need to be assessments of whatever the researchers come up with against FHWA and AASHTO safety standards etc.