EWT Roadkill Project

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Alf
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Re: EWT Roadkill Project

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Will post pictures later.


Next trip to the bush??

Let me think......................
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Image



15 June - Kruger, 2km east of Shitlhave Dam


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Alf
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Re: EWT Roadkill Project

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Must be an accident O** 0*\


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Re: EWT Roadkill Project

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how many I found like this one @#$

shame :-(


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Re: EWT Roadkill Project

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:no:


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Re: EWT Roadkill Project

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Francolin, Sand River tar road 16/07




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Re: EWT Roadkill Project

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:-(

and you ate it O** --00--


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Re: EWT Roadkill Project

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RESEARCH SHOWS THAT SPEEDING MAY NOT BE THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF ROADKILL IN PROTECTED AREAS
Posted on May 5, 2016 by endangeredwildlifetrust

shutterstock_316216892
Roadkill is not an everyday sighting you expect or want to see in a national park, so it is with some sadness that we received a report of a Cheetah killed on the road in one of our protected areas on Freedom Day last week. Four Cheetah roadkill incidents have been submitted to the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s (EWT) roadkill database since 2013. However, none of these were in protected areas, all having occurred on our regional and national roads. The research that has been conducted by the EWT in protected areas in recent years indicates that speeding may not be the primary cause of roadkill in protected areas.

The Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Wildlife and Roads Project (EWT-WRP) has been gathering roadkill data on regional and national roads across the country since 2010, including a number of roads in protected areas. This is in an effort to understand which species are most at risk and to then use this information to propose preventative measures to reduce roadkill.

In 2014, the WRP expanded its data collection to include protected areas, as evidence suggested that wildlife is also being killed on roads in our national parks and protected areas. Following surveys conducted in the Pilanesberg National Park and the Addo Elephant National Park in 2014 and 2015, a number of species were found dead on the road in both parks, and Wendy Collinson, the project executant of the WRP set out to find out why.

From questionnaire surveys conducted amongst visitors to the parks, the majority of respondents believed speeding vehicles to be the culprit for animals killed on the roads in protected areas. Collinson investigated this through the use of traffic monitoring devices and found that this was not always the case and that compliance with park speed limits was found to be reasonably high. “We postulated that roadkills were likely to occur because drivers were unaware of their surroundings and therefore drove over animals on the road through lack of attention. To investigate this factor we monitored a sample of 450 vehicles and nearly 70% of the drivers were observed to not be looking at the road, but rather scanning the bush for wildlife”, said Collinson. “This suggests that many roadkills in national parks happen because of the expectation that animals are to be found in the habitat alongside the road, rather than on the road itself”, she added.

The same sample of vehicles was used to investigate the role of speed in determining rates of roadkill. The research team placed a fake snake on the road, and recorded how many times it was ‘hit’ and the speed at which the vehicle was travelling. We found that approximately 50% of drivers hit the fake snake. “From our survey, it seems that observation levels of the driver, rather than the speed of the vehicle, is the key factor in causing roadkill,” Collinson commented.

Armed with a better understanding of the reasons why roadkill may be happening in national parks, the research team will be returning to Pilanesberg National Park to undertake follow-up work later this year. “One of our recommendations from the roadkill survey is that a driver awareness campaign is launched in parks to make drivers more aware of animals on the roads themselves,” Collinson commented. “We plan to test a number of awareness-measures with visitors to the park and to assess which method works best. This will guide us with future decisions in other parks that will improve the quality of the experience of park visitors and safeguard the animals in these protected areas,” she concluded. The next stage of the project will commence shortly in Pilanesberg National Park, Hluhluwe iMfolozi Park, and possibly also in the Kruger National Park and Table Mountain National Park.


https://endangeredwildlifetrust.wordpre ... ted-areas/


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Re: EWT Roadkill Project

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Probably one and the other, depending of the animal being hit. A snake, tortoise or chameleon might be hit because of inattention, but a cheetah......I doubt it very much.


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Re: EWT Roadkill Project

Post by Lisbeth »

Protecting African wildlife

SPECIAL REPORTS Tamsin Oxford 29 Jun 2018 00:00

Image
Wendy Collinson is the recipient of the TW Kambule-NSTF Award: Emerging Researcher through research and its outputs by an individual

Roadkill. For the motorist, this word may invoke the frustration of vehicle damage or a potentially dangerous incident; little more. It is something to be avoided, to look away from on a long journey. However, for our wildlife, the effects of humans and their vehicles are far-reaching and deadly. South Africa’s roads are a direct threat to the diversity of local flora and fauna, and there is a pressing need to find a solution that protects them.

For Wendy Collinson, a field worker with the Endangered Wildlife Trust, minimising the impact of roads and vehicles on wildlife has become her career. It is something she never anticipated when she took a break from her job as a teacher in the United Kingdom to undertake volunteer work in South Africa.

“I was volunteering as an assistant researcher with the Endangered Wildlife Trust and I was tracking large carnivores,” she says. “As I was driving along the roads, I noticed a lot of dead animals. Initially, I associated it with just being part of South Africa. Then I discovered it was a global thing and decided to turn it into a more robust study.”

Collinson undertook a literature review. She realised that there had already been significant research on roads in more developed countries such as the United States and Europe, and on how they fragment populations, create barriers and damage habitats. She decided to do a more robust survey, driving set routes every day with the goal of doing a Master’s degree in zoology.

“Looking at the baseline data just for roadkill, and the traffic volumes for tourism and mining activity, we ended up publishing a number of papers,” says Collinson. “We then launched a national campaign, asking members of the public to submit roadkill data, introducing a mobile app and using social media to gather ad hoc data. More stakeholders and supporters grew interested in the work we were doing, and before I knew it, my Master’s became the Wildlife and Roads Project.”

Collinson now co-ordinates a variety of research projects that examine the effect of roads on South Africa’s wildlife and find ways to reduce roadkill. She works closely with the transport sector and academia, with the goal of developing a body of knowledge to inform development and planning decisions regarding future road designs. This will, in turn, reduce the impact of roads on South Africa’s flora and fauna.

“In addition to roads, we realised that other infrastructure impacted on wildlife deaths,” says Collinson. “Railways, marine and coastal shipping, airports – the entire transport sector affects biodiversity. Interestingly, while there is an insurance offset for the loss of human life when involved in a collision with an animal, the cost to biodiversity is rarely considered.

“We’ve jumped from roads to rail and are gathering ad hoc data there, as well as undertaking a scoping report on marine and coastal shipping. This project has now expanded all over the country. We aren’t just focused on roadkill, but also on what we can do to prevent it and mitigate it.”

The work has expanded further into protected areas – wildlife are being run over in places where they should be safest. “In the parks, we are trialling solutions to reduce roadkill as well as understand and change driver behaviour. Every aspect of the work done and the data gathered has been put through rigorous processes as it has to be utterly robust before it can be used to motivate for support or change.”


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