The city of Humboldt, Sask., and local wildlife advocates will face off at city council Monday night over a plan to build a highway bypass right next to a popular wildlife reserve.

The city says there's too much highway traffic going through town, and it wants to build a bypass to divert heavier trucks.

But the route preferred by engineers travels right beside a wildlife refuge composed of natural grasslands, home to deer and moose.

"It's just going to be effectively opening up a killing zone," said Mike Volk of the Humboldt Wildlife Federation.

He wants the city to make sure the proposed highway is nowhere near the Kloppenburg Wildlife Refuge, which is just south of town.

The refuge was created in 1996 when local residents Henry and Cheryl Kloppenburg donated 65 hectares of land. As more people donated land, the refuge grew to its current 400 hectares.

"I gave the property to the community and the district to benefit them, so that their future generations would have the access to natural property and the wildlife there," Kloppenburg said Monday.

Mayor Malcolm Eaton said the wildlife refuge is important to the city. But the route beside the refuge is preferred by the engineers who came up with the plan.

"We aren't the ones that actually pick the route. We're sort of also part of the process, and we certainly recognize the concerns the wildlife group have expressed," Eaton said.