When I was driving from my home in Decatur to Tifton in South Georgia the other day, I noticed — and smelled — several dead skunks along the highway. I decided to keep a road-kill count during the return trip, which covered some 200 miles at an average speed of about 50 mph.
I tallied five skunks (which are breeding now) and an assortment of other small road-killed animals — hawks, an armadillo, three raccoons, three opossums, several squirrels and other creatures too squished to identify.
Of course, it’s not unusual to spot road-kill: I see it nearly every time I drive even a short distance from home. Sad to say, in some cases I’ve been the driver in a road-kill accident.
But, after keeping count of the road-kill I saw in a single trip, I decided to do some research on the problem. I came across a newly published book co-edited by three researchers, one of whom is Kimberly Andrews, an ecologist at the University of Georgia and the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island.
The book, “Roads and Ecological Infrastructure: Concepts and Applications for Small Animals,” summarizes the available research on the effects of roads and traffic on small mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. These creatures account by far for the vast majority of road-killed animals.
However, most road mitigation measures, such as highway overpasses, are designed to avoid collisions between cars and large animals, such as bears, deer and elk. Encounters with the larger creatures can do serious damage to vehicles and even injure or kill drivers and passengers.
“But effects of roads on small animals remain largely below the radar,” the researchers write. “Collisions with small animals do not typically endanger humans or damage vehicles, and road-killed small animals go unnoticed just because they are small.”
No one knows how many animals are killed on roads, but one estimate puts it at 1 million per day nationwide.
“Designing roads and mitigation measures to avoid wildlife conflicts is possible, but expert recommendations are needed,” the authors conclude.
In the sky: From David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer: The moon will be last-quarter Thursday. Mercury is low in the east at dawn. Venus rises out of the east about an hour before dawn. Mars rises out of the east a few hours after dusk. Jupiter is high in the east at dusk. Saturn rises out of the east just after dusk.
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