Life in the Fast Lane
Life in the Fast Lane
by
Rob Read
Above: The Fox is a regular road casualty as Rob was reminded last week.
On Friday, I got up early to undertake a commission for the Woodland Trust in West Sussex. It involved producing eye-catching photographs of a semi ancient woodland threatened by a planning application for a large holiday park. The hope is that these would help spread the message about the loss of another valuable area of woodland and inspire people enough to protect it.
I’ve written a couple of pieces about life’s little ironies recently, and Friday turned out to be another rather sad example. As I was on my way to the woodland, I hit and (I presume) killed a fox with my car in the twilight of dawn. It sauntered across a motorway slip road as I rounded the blind corner from the access roundabout, and all I got was a brief glimpse of it before the sickening thud as I hit it with the car. I couldn’t stop as there was no hard shoulder, I just hope I killed it outright and it didn’t suffer. The irony of my killing a beautiful wild animal while on my way to help a conservation effort wasn’t lost, in spite of the sickening feeling in my stomach. This experience reminded me of something I wrote a few months ago about other wildlife and the number of animals we encounter dead on the roadside, so I thought I would share it again here.
It seems that we, and I include myself in this, have become accustomed to seeing roadkill regularly and have simply accepted it as part of modern life. In many instances, seeing dead animals is the only reference many have of the species that we share our countryside with. Take Badgers for example. If you took a poll of people who have actually seen a live Badger when they haven’t been sat in a car, I expect the number would be worryingly small. I pass dead Badgers on the side of the road frequently, but I rarely see a live one, and I spend a lot of time in the places I know they live. Therefore, even my default reference for them is the vision of a roadside corpse, as it is the way I see them most frequently.
And what of the road casualties that go unseen? It’s hard to miss an animal the size of a Badger, a Roe Deer, or my poor unfortunate Fox for example, but who would notice a toad, a newt, a snake, or the many invertebrates whose populations must also be affected by our roads and other infrastructure networks?
The vast majority of the UK is within one kilometre of a road, not unsurprising perhaps when one considers the size of our island, the density of the population, and the money that is available to invest in new infrastructure projects. If one excluded mountainous terrain such as the Scottish Highlands and North Wales, I wonder how the statistics would look then. Here’s another shocking fact; surveys have revealed that most people in the UK, when asked how many animals are killed on Britain’s roads every year, estimate the number in the hundreds of thousands. The true figure is well into the millions.
Above: Hedgehogs do not have a happy relationship with roads and many are claimed each year by unsuspecting motorists. ©Rob Read.
Having consideration for the density of the road network in the UK (not to mention the additional impact of railways) let’s now consider the habits of some of our animals and the size of the territories they require by focusing on an iconic UK species, the Hedgehog. Studies show that Hedgehogs can travel up to two kilometres every night, which means that they require around 90 hectares of unfragmented habitat. There aren’t many places in the UK where this would not put them in contact with a road, and we all know that this cute and spiny mammal doesn’t have a very happy relationship with these strips of tarmac. Most of us are also now aware that our Hedgehogs are in serious trouble, their numbers having declined by 30% in urban areas and a staggering 50% in rural areas since 2000. There are now only an estimated one million animals in Britain, compared to 30 million in the 1950s. Estimates for the number of Hedgehogs killed on the road every year range from 100,000 to a staggering 335,000 animals – that’s a huge percentage of the population. I am fortunate to have a family of Hedgehogs living in my garden, but they will undoubtedly come into regular contact with the road that runs through the village. One of my fellow villagers has recorded well over 10 Hedgehogs claimed by cars this year alone along our village roads.
By visualising this mass of tarmac criss-crossing our country, and by overlaying this dense network grid over the habitats and territories required by our wildlife to survive, a true picture of its impact emerges. Consider the numerous species that live on our island, and their many and varied habitat and territorial requirements, many of which will be far larger than that of our example Hedgehog. The fact is that animals have to cross these barriers regularly, and most haven’t a clue about road safety. And it’s not just the crossing of these barriers that is an issue; to some, the tarmac is an attraction too.
Above: Green Bridges are one way of mitigating the impact of major infrastructure projects.
Snakes and other reptiles commonly bask on bare earth, rocks, and south-facing banks and slopes to soak up the heat of the sun and raise their body temperature before they can move around, feed, and breed. The tarmac of the road heats up quickly and is an ideal environment for a basking reptile. It doesn’t take too much imagination to realise the dangers of adopting this particular strategy.
The impact of roads is not restricted to the road’s surface alone. Pollution from chemical and noise emissions can literally broaden the problem. Artificial lighting from numerous streetlights, signage, and roadside buildings can also have a major impact. I can think of instances where Blackbirds and other species that are naturally active in the low light of dawn, sing in the middle of the night in areas of light pollution. I have seen Barn Owls hunting for the large moths that are attracted to streetlights, putting themselves in close proximity to road traffic and increasing the danger of them being hit.
Only now does it seem that these issues are beginning to be fully understood and addressed. In part this is down to modern technology such as mobile apps recording large amounts of data and the encouragement of citizen science projects. Possible mitigation measures include targeted road closures at peak animal migration periods, improved road signage, animal tunnels, green bridges, and improved driver awareness. It is certainly time that new transport infrastructure projects took into account the increased fragmentation of wildlife habitats and included properly considered mitigation measures backed by science and research. Perhaps a wildlife barrier may have stopped my Fox from wandering onto the motorway slip road the other morning. Unfortunately neither I or it will ever know.
Rob Read. November 2021.
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