Defenders Magazine
Get Defenders Headlines
Get the latest wildlife conservation news and information... right when we post it online.
Defenders Magazine
Wildlife: At the Crossroads
If high gas prices and global warming aren't reasons enough to give your car a rest, here's another: Road kill may be a major cause of the catastrophic decline of amphibian species.
Purdue University researchers recently took on the decidedly unglamorous task of counting and identifying road kill on four stretches of road totaling 11 miles in an Indiana suburb. During the 17-month study, 10,500 dead animals were identified—and 95 percent of those were frogs and other amphibians.
"We estimate there were many more dead animals," says Andrew DeWoody, coauthor of the study. "We couldn't identify many specimens because they were squashed beyond recognition, picked at by predators or degraded by the elements."
Especially troubling were the 74 dead northern leopard frogs, a state species of special concern, and the 142 crushed eastern tiger salamanders—many of them mature females bearing 500 to 1,000 eggs on their way to their breeding grounds. "Numbers like these could make a big difference in future populations," he says.
Mammals, the usual focus of road-kill studies, barely registered in comparison, with four deer, 43 raccoons and 79 opossums collected.
What's the solution? For starters, says coauthor Dave Glista, we could try to avoid building roads through wetlands. Underpasses that allow wildlife to cross roads safely would be a great help—although costly. Defenders of Wildlife's Habitats and Highways campaign is working with state and local authorities across the country to incorporate wildlife-saving possibilities into transportation planning. To find out more and for tips on what you can do to avoid wildlife collisions, check out www.defenders.org/wow.
And then don't forget—there's always the bus.
