Lockyer Roadkill: drawing meaning from roadkill

Roadkill happens. That is a sad and unpleasant fact.
However, by recording key factors about each roadkill event we are accumulating data that can facilitate initiatives with the aim of reducing both the direct and indirect effects of roads on wildlife populations.
The evidence that is being built up from your contributions, and through similar projects in other areas, can be used to change the design of roads and their surrounding infrastructure, or to support calls for changes to speed limits or the installation of traffic warning signs.
All of these are contributions to decreasing the incidence of roadkill, not only in the local area but perhaps more widely.
At the same time, by recording details associated with each roadkill, we can derive the maximum conservation benefits for the impacted species, and indeed for the science of ecology.
Systematically and extensively monitoring roadkill has the potential to facilitate critical areas of ecological study: monitoring of roadkill numbers; monitoring of population trends; mapping of native and invasive species distributions; improved understanding of wildlife movement through the landscape; animal behaviour; and monitoring of contaminants and disease.
Truly, we can give meaning to roadkill events by recording them on iNaturalist Australia, where the information is available to engineers, planners, ecologists, and conservation managers. menos ↑