Abstract:
Railways are essential transportation corridors that facilitate the movement of goods
and people with important environmental and economic benefits. Despite these
benefits, railways and trains can negatively affect wildlife through mortalities, barrier
effects, disturbances, and habitat loss. There is growing evidence that human activity
negatively affects the spatial distribution of wildlife in relation to the distance from the
infrastructure and wildlife also adjust their spatiotemporal activity to avoid or minimize
encounters of human activity. Moreover, wildlife mortalities due to collision with trains
are a major conservation concern which can jeopardize the persistence of wildlife
populations as wildlife-train collisions are non-specific with regard the species, age
and sex of the animal affected.
In this study, I assessed the activity patterns of six medium-large sized mammals (≥
10 kg) and monitored the mortalities of wildlife from four different taxonomic groups on
the landscape bisected by the railway line in Balule Nature Reserve. Impala and giraffe
occurrences on the railway line is mostly diurnal. Meanwhile, lion occurrence on the
railway line is mostly nocturnal. Four of my focal species moderately overlapped with
train activity, with no seasonal differences in their degree of activity overlap. African
buffalo and elephant activity decreased with increasing distance from the railway line.
Giraffe, impala, and lions are less active around the railway line in the wet season than
the dry season. Spotted hyaena are more active around the railway in both open
grassland and woodland compared to mixed shrubland habitat intersecting the railway.
I recorded a total of 99 rail-kills from a total of 450 km surveyed over a 90-day period.
Of these rail-kills, mammals were recorded more often (29.29%), followed by birds
(26.26%), reptiles (26.26%) and amphibians (18.18%). There was no significant
difference in the frequency of mortalities on the railway line between seasons (U =
286.5, n = 49, p = 0.421). The rail mortalities of diurnal did not differ significantly from
nocturnal species (x² = 0.55, df = 1, p = 0.458). However, there were significantly more
mortalities of diurnal species than nocturnal species on the railway line during the dry
season (p < 0.05). Most encountered deaths on the railway line occurred in a mixed
shrubland section but there was no significant association in the frequency of rail
mortalities and rail-side habitat type (H = 0.84, df = 2, p = 0.657).
