Mammal Roadkills in Lithuanian Urban Areas: A 15-Year Study

Abstract

We investigated roadkills in urban areas in Lithuania from 2007 to 2022, including two periods with COVID-19 restrictions on people’s movement. We analyzed the proportions of wild and domestic animals in roadkill, annual trends, the predominant species involved, and monthly changes during the restrictions. Urban roads were characterized by a low species diversity of roadkilled mammals, with roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) dominating. Total numbers increased exponentially during the study period. The proportion of domestic animals, 12.2%, significantly exceeded that on non-urban roads in the country. The proportion of domestic animals decreased from over 40% in 2007–2009 to 3.7–5.4% in 2020–2022, while the proportion of wild mammals increased from 36.1–39.6% to 89.9–90.6%, respectively. During the periods of COVID-19 restrictions, the number of roadkills in urban areas was significantly higher than expected based on long-term trends. Compared to 2019, the number of roadkilled roe deer in 2020–2021 almost doubled from 700 to 1281–1325 individuals. These anthropause effects were, however, temporary. The imbalance between the roadkill number and transport intensity might require new mitigation strategies to sustain mammal populations in urban areas, at least through improving driver awareness on the issue.

Roadkill Patterns on Workdays, Weekends and Long Weekends: Anticipating the Implications of a Four-Day Work Week

“…A decrease of AADT on regional roads was not observed, in fact it has increased slightly, being 413 vehicles/day in 2019, 432 in 2021, and 439 vehicles/day in 2022. In Lithuania, the effects of the restrictions on human mobility during the COVID-19 period were already analyzed [55,56]. While there was a significant reduction in accidents on major roads during the period, the number of wildlife-vehicle collisions in urban areas increased.…”

Trends and Characteristics of Human Casualties in Wildlife–Vehicle Accidents in Lithuania, 2002–2022

“…In the earlier decades, WVA investigations focused on the main roads [21][22][23], and recently, problems have arisen even in the urban areas [24,25] and require attention. As WVAs occur also on the low traffic intensity roads [26,27], wildlife fencing is not a universal solution [28].…”

“…The other traffic accident-related scientific analyses from the country do not include a wildlife component. For example, comparing transport accident patterns in cities of Lithuania and Sweden [38], the authors do not mention the WVA problem, though it is really threatening [24]. Other papers analyze driver-related aspects [39] and/or temporal and meteorological factors but not in the WVA context [40].…”