Yes, you read that right! We’ve partnered with Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation again for the European leg of our journey, this time with the goal of documenting roadkill observations for the University of California Davis Road Ecology Center.
It can be easy to forget, especially when speeding along at 100 km/hour in a car, that we share all the places we inhabit with other animals who have places to go and things to do too. Just as we humans move throughout our “home ranges” to carry out daily tasks, seasonal activities, or major events and milestones in our lives, other animals do the same. But how often do we imagine the landscapes we travel as multi-species landscapes? Animals use the same roads we do, sometimes just to cross them, sometimes as travel routes or foraging areas. And remembering this when we design roads can make a huge difference to some wildlife populations, whether by reducing vehicle collision deaths or by enabling fragmented subpopulations to stay connected.
Badger on the roadside by a National Park in Hungary |
Bicycling
thousands of kilometers through Europe in spring means passing through
different wildlife habitats and patterns of land use nearly every day.
Thanks to our re-route to begin our trip in Croatia while central Europe
was still covered in snow, we have found ourselves surrounded by
budding trees and blooming flowers all the way as we chase the leading
edge of springtime to the north. The great benefit of covering so much
territory is that we witness so many patterns. Though our roadkill
observations have been much less frequent than we expected (perhaps
because central Europe has less wildlife in general than other places
such as California where other roadkill studies have been done), the
patterns we see make sense. We see dead songbirds near forests, dead
rats and birds of prey near farm fields, and dead frogs and toads near
wetlands.
Bird of Prey on a road between farm fields in Slovenia |
Our
most striking observations yet have been the mass mortalities of toads
in some places. We had seen only a couple roadkills so far when, one
week into our trip, we biked through the village of Sava, Slovenia and
passed approximately 30 squashed toads in the space of 200 meters. Over
the next several days, when we passed small wetlands, we saw more and we
probably missed a lot since it turns out the leathery, dark bodies of
flattened toads look an awful lot like clumps of dirt or bits of tire
rubber when you fly by them at 20 km/hour. Markus told me that many
local conservation organizations in Europe put up frog fences along
roadsides where crossings are common to reduce frog and toad deaths. In
one Austrian village where we stopped to photograph a couple toads on
the road, we noticed one such fence nearby that was in need of repair.
It’s things like these fences, or wildlife crossing bridges, that can
make a difference for wildlife populations.
Squashed Toad with amphibian fence in background |
An amphibian fence in need of repair |
Wow, I love that you are doing this! How fascinating and important to remember and study!
ReplyDeleteLOVE what you're doing. I've just started something similar in Bali. Check out our FB page: http://www.facebook.com/flatfroggie
ReplyDelete