How to Make Roads Safer for Wildlife
Many of our native wildlife die on roads each year, and yet there are many ways to prevent this, from driving better to installing wildlife crossings, inspired from abroad. Creating walkable communities, so there are less cars on the roads, is also good.
Be a Wildlife-Friendly Driver
- Keep to speed limits and be alert for wildlife, especially at dawn and dusk.
- Use full beam at night (dipped lights are best in fog, rain or snow, or else light could reflect back and startle). Keep your lights, brakes and windscreens in good condition.
- Use a car trash bag to avoid dropping litter out the window. This stops scavengers (and animals that scavenge on dead animals).
Keep a rescue kit in your car boot (a cardboard box with punched air-holes, thick gloves and a tassel-free towel). Then call your local wildlife rescue (or vet) and the police for larger animals (they have trained marksmen who can shoot suffering animals, if RSPCA takes too long).
Also read our post on helping birds of prey (this requires different advice, due to strong beaks and sharp talons).
Wildlife reflectors fit along road verges and send headlights sideways into the undergrowth. These are ideal to place when tunnels or fences are not practical. They are cheap and quick to fit, and should be orange-hued (ask your council to get involved).
How to Make Roads Safer for Badgers
A fifth of badgers die in road accidents, as they travel at night between setts to find food or mates. Badger warning signs would help as would badger tunnels.
Reporting road casualties helps Badger Trust track accident. For injured badger, contact The Badger Trust (local volunteers can help), it also runs an emergency fund to cover vet fees, for local groups.
How to Make Roads Safer for Hedgehogs
Again, hedgehogs are nocturnal so move around at night, due to lack of hedges and open gardens. Leaving small gaps (13cm by 13cm) in the bottom of fences can help (you can close these up during the day if you have pets), to let hogs move freely, without visiting roads.
If you find an injured hedgehog, contact British Hedgehog Preservation Society, it has experts who can advise, and direct you to the local volunteers.
How to Make Roads Safer for Deer and Boar
The UK has around 75,000 deer/car accidents, and sometimes humans die too. Councils can help by not planting flowers in railings, where deer often get stuck (they eat flowers).
Report traffic accidents (also for wild boar) at Deer Aware, so they know hotspots to launch awareness campaigns. Download free ‘Deer About’ posters. Deer are more likely to cross roads near woods, fields or water, especially at dawn and dusk. And travel in groups.
If you do hit a deer or see one that’s injured, do not move it yourself (it could run off while needing vet help). Keep the area quiet, and cover the creature with a blanket, to help calm, until help arrives.
Safer Roads for Frogs, Toads and Newts
Providing habitats for amphibians is good, as most on roads are searching for wildlife-friendly ponds.
Become a toad patroller (volunteers take migrating toads to the other side of the road in buckets, during breeding season).All you need is some enthusiasm, the ability to stay awake at night, and wellies. It’s like being a Toad Lollipop Lady!
Make Roads Safer for Bird and Bats
Birds and bats fly close to the ground, so geese and swans are at risk, due to needing ‘a good run’ to get off the ground, so sometimes end up on roundabouts. Bats and owls also fly low, putting them at risk of road traffic.
Bird diverters are small devices that are placed every 10 metres or so, to make power lines and poles visible to birds. Ideal near power lines, they also prevent collisions with collisions with communication towers (some aviation authorities use them, to prevent plane crashes).
For birds and bats, overpasses let bats use treelines as guides, covered with vegetation. To prevent the thousands of owls killed on roads each year, Barn Owl Trust says it’s best to do one of the following:
- Plant high hedges or lines of closely-spaced trees, next to road surface on both sides.
- Plant trees 3-4 metres back from the road edge, and allow side branches to reach within 1 metre of the road service.
- Allow road verges to become covered in tall ‘scrub’.
Bats in particular avoid bright lights, because it confuses their night vision, when hunting for insects. So use orange-hued wildlife-friendly lighting, which councils can buy and install.
Mowing grass and trimming trees at set times (outside the nesting season) can allow drivers and wildlife to see each other more clearly, while still protecting natural habitats. Planting low shrubs can keep birds from gathering near roads at all, guiding them to safer spots.
Don’t place nest boxes within 1km of major roads, have continuous screens on both sides.
Small wetlands attract insects, a top food source for birds and bats, so will drive them away from urban areas. Linking woodlands, ponds and hedges helps wildlife move from place to place, without encountering road traffic.
If building work is planned, work with local wildlife experts to know when to delay tree cutting or ground clearance (until after breeding times). Using noise barriers and dust control, can also limit impact on nesting birds and foraging bats.
How to Make Roads Safer for Pheasants
Pheasants have no road sense, they are bred for the hunting industry. So if they escape from being shot, they end up injured or killed in roads. And eat sand lizards (endangered) as they are over-bred.
Like hedgehogs, pheasants will freeze if in danger, so many lose their lives on England’s roads. They are involved in 7% of all roadkill, and can also cause serious injury or death to humans.
Again, thick hedges and native shrubs along roadsides, will help birds not wander onto open tarmac, and give them safer points to retreat to. Farmers can help by leaving field margins, uncut grass strips and wide verges near roads.
Reasons to Install More Wildlife Crossings
Wildlife crossings abound abroad, but in England we only have a few. ‘Road ecology’ involves creating tunnels and over-passes to help animals migrate and travel, without harm. And although expensive to build, the long-term cost is less than cleaning up roadkill.
ARC is the worldwide website of road ecology, detailing the issues and latest inventions to help.
Some good books to learn more on wildlife crossings:
- Wildlife Crossings of Hope explains how wildlife crossings work and are used. This uplifting book focuses on ideas abroad, from the world’s largest wildlife bridge (near LA), canopy bridges for monkeys (India) and an elephant underpass (Kenya).
- Wildlife Crossing: Giving Animals the Right of Way asks how to stop wildlife being killed on the world’s 13 million miles of roads. Overpasses can reconnect landscapes and keep wildlife safe from light, noise and litter.
- Wildlife Crossings shows how elephant crossings are helping these gentle giants from being killed (for trampling crops), and also profiles cougar crossings (USA) and Canada’s Banff Wildlife Corridor (used by tiny insects to wolves, moose, elk and grizzly bears).
Creatures follow set routes. So if they are going east to west and you build a road that’s north to south, it’s going to cause issues. Many roads slice through habitats (creatures won’t divert routes, because a road has been built).
Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing (LA) is due to open in 2026, the world’s largest wildlife crossing , that will cross 10 lanes of motorway to help deer, black bears, coyotes, mountain lions and reptiles safely connect between the Santa Monica mountains and Simi Hills, to find food and mates.
Holland has hundreds of wildlife crossings, yet England only has a few. One in Cheshire has 9 habitats for great-crested newts, boxes for barn owls, a manmade sett for badgers and 21 ponds for amphibians & replacement bat roosts, 80 semi-mature trees & 60,000 saplings.
The irony is that one wildlife crossing (near Brackley, Northamptonshire) has been designed by HS2 high-speed rail project (which will kill around 22,000 wildlife per year once built, based on comparisons with similar trains abroad).
