Red Wildlife Crossing, Janet Rosenberg & Studio
To learn how to keep wildlife safe near roads, is very important. Both as individual drivers and for town planners. Millions of wildlife get killed each year (and millions more will die, if Buckinghamshire’s HS2 project goes ahead, as all super-fast trains kill tens of thousands of wildlife.
To keep wildlife safe near roads, drive sensibly and use your beam lights if driving in poor light (dim them if you see wildlife). If you see one deer (especially at dusk and dawn) there are likely to be more. Keep a wildlife rescue box in your car and call the wildlife ambulance (and police for larger animals), keeping animals quiet and safe in a ventilated box.
Keep Wildlife Safe Near roads
- Use a car trash bag. This helps to avoid throwing food waste out the window, which attracts wildlife. The dead wildlife then attracts more wildlife to scavenge. Take your rubbish home with you.
- Volunteer for Toad Patrol. Toads cross roads to breed, and don’t notice lorries. Local groups always welcome ‘toad lollipop ladies!
- Banff National Park in Canada has reduced collisions by 80% through wildlife crossing ideas. It’s the gold-standard worldwide. For more ideas, read The Handbook of Road Ecology by world experts.
- CROCFAST and SWAN-FLIGHT make bird diverters. These stop swans and geese hitting power lines, by using special UV light, so they can see them, and can fly a different route. A big cause of wildlife ambulance call-outs are creatures who have crashed-landed on roads or roundabouts.
We spend billions a year running over wildlife. If we took that cost and quartered it, we could build 200 animal crossings a year. And roadkill would disappear within a generation. Ted Zoli