New app about British roadkill mammals

Posted on by

This video from Britain is called BES Mammals in the City – Camera 1.

From Wildlife Extra:

New free app to help monitor roadkill in UK – You can help

Apps put volunteers in the driving-seat of conservation: Roadkill survey contributes to wildlife monitoring

July 2013. It is a sad fact that around one million mammals are killed on UK roads each year. However, roadkill provides wildlife experts with clues about the state of wild animal populations, as the proportion of dead animals relates to the number of those alive in the wild. So, which wild mammal have you most often spotted dead on the road? Hedgehog, fox, rabbit or badger – and what can scientists tell from these counts?

Hedgehogs disappearing

More cars, travelling greater distances, will affect the numbers of animals killed on the road, so traffic flow has to be taken into account. In 2005 and 2011, when the volume of traffic was very similar, the biggest difference in counts was shown by rabbits, falling by about 40 per cent. While this seems dramatic, rabbits are abundant and the population can recover quickly. Foxes show no change, while on average, hedgehog sightings have fallen by 25 per cent between the two years and by a third since the start of the annual Mammals on Roads survey in 2001.

David Wembridge, Surveys Officer at PTES says: “Monitoring wild populations on a national scale is no easy task and Mammals on Roads is one of the few surveys that has achieved it. Continuous monitoring each year is vital to understanding the changing state of mammal populations and we could not do this work without the help of the general public. Data collected by over a thousand volunteers taking part in the survey contributed to the recent State of Nature report and also provided evidence of the drastic decline in hedgehog numbers over the last decade, putting the species at the centre of our conservation efforts.”

Since the launch of the Mammals on Roads survey over ten years ago, around one and a half thousand motorists travelling by car have surveyed around half a million miles of road along the length and breadth of Britain, recording sightings of any mammals, dead or alive, that they spot from their vehicle.

The difference in counts between 2005 and 2011, when traffic flow for the two years differed only slightly

Species Population Up or Down % Change

Rabbit Down -42%

Hedgehog Down -25%

Fox No change –

Badger Up +27%

New app to help you map road kill

You can take part in the survey using your smartphone or tablet, and this year it’s accessible to even more people thanks to the launch of a new app for Android phones. The free Mammals on Roads iPhone and Android apps make it easier to take part in the survey on the move: the location of sightings and the routes of participants’ journeys are recorded using the inbuilt GPS of the phones. The information captured is then sent to the Mammals on Roads database and analysed by wildlife experts at PTES. Journeys that are repeated along the same route year on year especially provide important scientific data on changing populations.

Mark Billinge, who created the new app for Android phones explains: “Smartphones and tablets with inbuilt GPS have the potential to revolutionise wildlife recording. Collecting data in the field is made simpler with the app and it can be sent directly to a database without the need to copy over written records. Monitoring wild populations is more in our grasp now and understanding how wildlife is changing is key to conservation efforts by organisations such as PTES.”

The apps are available to download for free at the App Store and Google Play. Alternatively, scan the above QR code for details on how to take part, or contact mor@ptes.org or call 020 7498 4533 to request a printed survey pack.

USA: July 2013. Visitors to some of the USA iconic national parks are a leading cause of theirwildlife deaths, according to road-kill records from Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Teton national parks released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Worryingly, even as park wildlife-vehicle collisions continue to escalate, Yellowstone takes no preventative measures at all while, in contrast, Grand Teton invests significant resources to analyze and reduce these usually fatal interaction: here.

Related articles