Designing wildlife-vehicle conflict observation systems to inform ecology and transportation studies

Abstract

Globally, wildlife-vehicle conflict (WVC) fragments wildlife populations (due to road/traffic-aversion), kills and injures individual animals, can cause wildlife population declines, may eventually contribute to local or total extinction of certain species, and can harm vehicles and drivers. Preventing WVC begins with recording locations of conflict, such as vehicle crashes, animal carcasses (roadkill), or animal behavior around roads, such as avoidance of roads or crossing-behavior. These data are ideally used to inform transportation policy and planning and to retrofit roadways and their structures to reduce WVC. We are collectively involved with or manage eight regional or national systems for reporting WVC in collaboration with volunteers and/or agency staff. In this review, we survey systems for recording WVC by volunteers and agency staff at different geographical scales, based on existing literature and our personal experience. We report the range of data collection methods, data management systems and data visualizations employed as well as discuss the groups and type of volunteers and agencies involved. We use our expertise and the global survey to provide methodological specifications based on current best-practice for collecting and using WVC data to inform transportation and conservation decisions. We conclude with a vision of next steps toward a global network of WVC reporting systems, that have clear and practical applications for improved conservation research as well as guidelines for management of road networks.

A Reprieve from US wildlife mortality on roads during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Observatories created to monitor WVC are critical for understanding the impact of WVC on absolute and relative changes in population size ( Fahrig and Rytwinski 2009 ) and the impact of sudden or large changes in traffic (present study and Bíl et al, 2021 ; this Special Issue). WVC observatories are expanding and becoming more sophisticated, employing modern informatics, data management and visualization, and decision-support protocols ( Shilling et al, 2020 ). For example, the systems in California employ a combination of automated data collection from online reporting from California Highway Patrol in real time and volunteer-contributed observations of carcasses ( Waetjen and Shilling 2017 ; Shilling et al, 2020 ).…”

“…WVC observatories are expanding and becoming more sophisticated, employing modern informatics, data management and visualization, and decision-support protocols ( Shilling et al, 2020 ). For example, the systems in California employ a combination of automated data collection from online reporting from California Highway Patrol in real time and volunteer-contributed observations of carcasses ( Waetjen and Shilling 2017 ; Shilling et al, 2020 ). We suggest that supporting observatories like the ones used in this study is vital to understanding and responding to many contemporary conservation challenges, as well as to measuring the benefits from intentional or unintentional changes in anthropogenic impacts.…”

“…Studies of WVC, including proximate causes, total rates, seasonality and other properties have been aided by the emergence of large-extent WVC observatories ( Shilling et al, 2020 ). These observatories provide two important types of data that are relevant to studies of changes in WVC in response to the pandemic: 1) rates of mortality of animals on roads from traffic and 2) evidence of species occurrence at species places and time.…”

COVID-19 related travel restrictions prevented numerous wildlife deaths on roads: A comparative analysis of results from 11 countries

“…This is why this study was only performed in eleven countries where relevant data could be accessed quickly, with information available generally dominated by WVC with large and relatively abundant mammalian species. However, WVC reporting systems, usually with high volunteer (i.e., citizen-scientists) participation, are increasingly being introduced in many countries ( Bíl et al, 2020b ; Schwartz et al, 2020 ; Shilling et al, 2020 , Shilling et al, 2021 ), which may assist in a better understanding of trends in WVC even if not total numbers in the future.…”

A decrease in reports on road-killed animals based on citizen science during COVID-19 lockdown

“…In some projects ( e.g. , Dieren onder de wielen by Natuurpunt in Belgium; ) citizen scientists monitor single roads at regular intervals, but in most projects citizen scientists report opportunistic data on road-killed animals during their daily routine ( Bíl et al, 2020 ; Shilling et al, 2020 ), which is a common approach in many ecological citizen science projects ( Van Strien, Van Swaay & Termaat, 2013 ; Horns, Adler & Şekercioğlu, 2018 ). In these projects, interested people are reporting data mostly via an app or an online form when they observe a dead animal on the road.…”