title: Wildlife road traffic accidents: a standardized protocol for counting flattened fauna.
abstract: Previous assessments of wildlife road mortality have not used directly comparable methods and, at present, there is no standardized protocol for the collection of such data. Consequently, there are no internationally comparative statistics documenting roadkill rates. In this study, we used a combination of experimental trials and road transects to design a standardized protocol to assess roadkill rates on both paved and unpaved roads. Simulated roadkill were positioned over a 1 km distance, and trials were conducted at eight different speeds (20-100 km·h(-1)). The recommended protocol was then tested on a 100-km transect, driven daily over a 40-day period. This recorded 413 vertebrate roadkill, comprising 106 species. We recommend the protocol be adopted for future road ecology studies to enable robust statistical comparisons between studies.
authors.affiliation: The Endangered Wildlife Trust Johannesburg, South Africa ; Wildlife and Reserve Management Research Group, Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University Grahamstown, South Africa ; Department of Nature Conservation, Tshwane University of Technology Pretoria, South Africa.
authors.forename: Wendy J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Collinson
authors.affiliation: Wildlife and Reserve Management Research Group, Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University Grahamstown, South Africa.
authors.forename: Daniel M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Parker
authors.affiliation: Wildlife and Reserve Management Research Group, Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University Grahamstown, South Africa.
authors.forename: Ric T F
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Bernard
authors.affiliation: Department of Nature Conservation, Tshwane University of Technology Pretoria, South Africa.
authors.forename: Brian K
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Reilly
authors.affiliation: The Endangered Wildlife Trust Johannesburg, South Africa.
authors.forename: Harriet T
authors.initials: HT
authors.lastname: Davies-Mostert
keywords: Detection; experimental trials; modeling; protocol; road transects; roadkill; species richness; wildlife traffic mortality