THE ROAD KILL ISSUE
Roads represent an important cause of mortality for many species and a threat for the conservation of biodiversity. This phenomenon is constantly increasing in recent years, and must not be underestimated due to the following reasons:
-accidents with wildlife can have a significant impact on the survival of some species, especially the ones that are at risk of extinction;
-roads can represent an important barrier for the movements of many wildlife species, thus reducing the interchange within and between populations;
Animal-vehicle collisions (AVC) produce considerable costs in road traffic due to human fatalities as well as ecological and economic losses.
Reliable data on economic and ecological costs is available to date for only a few European countries over the past three decades (cf. Langbein et al., 2011). For the year 1996 alone, in Europe 500,000 collisions with ungulates, 300 human fatalities and an economic loss of ca. one billion US dollars were estimated by Bruinderink and Hazebroek (1996). Two decades later, 263,000 officially reported WVC and an economic loss of almost 0.7 billion Euros were reported for Germany alone (GDV, 2017). The total damage in Europe overall can therefore be assumed to be far larger than in 1996. At present, a total of 800,000 AVC with ungulates is estimated for Germany, given that likely more than two-thirds of all collisions remain unreported, as reported for the US and Canada (Huijser and Kociolek, 2008; Snow et al., 2015; Hesse and Rea, 2016) (Reported from Benten et al (2018): Wildlife Warning reflectors’Potential to mitigate wildlife-vehicle collisions-A review on the evaluation methods. Front. Ecol. Evol., 12 April 2018 HO).
For each Italian Province it has been estimated that at least 15.000 animals are killed on the roads each year, summing up to 1,5 mln animals each year at national level. However, this number is purely indicative because the phenomenon is not yet accurately and systematically monitored.
In Spain there are no official sources, but a study published in 2015 by Antonio Sáez-de-Santa-María and Jose L. Tellería in the European Journal of Wildlife Research estimates that between 2006 and 2012 in Spain 74.600 animal-vehicle collisions have occurred, for an average of 10.657 casualties per year.
For Greece besides the database kept by the Motorway Company EGNATIA ODOS SA on its own highway network there is no national data base available. In 2015 and 2016 this company recorded collisions with an average of 282 wild animals and 235 domestic animals/livestock on the motorway track.
