Mapping roadkill in the Kruger National Park

Abstract

Roads not only create barriers for animals by preventing the free movement of individuals between populations but also cause mortality through collisions with vehicles (i.e. roadkill). In South Africa, most of our understanding of roadkill events stems from research on national and regional roads, but the impacts of roads in protected areas have been understudied. Though there have been ad hoc roadkill reports in protected areas by members of the public on social media, there have been little systematic roadkill surveys undertaken in South African protected areas and, road signage aside, no effective mitigation measures have been applied except traffic officers who are unable to monitor all roads simultaneously. This study formed part of a five-year project to undertake an assessment of roadkill in protected areas and assess mitigation measures to reduce it. This two-year project has recorded temporal and spatial roadkill in one section of the Kruger National Park, on both paved and unpaved roads. During this study a total of 189 roadkill were recorded in a period of 90 days covering 90 kilometres per day, and average roadkill rate was 0.4586 roadkill.km-1day-1. Roadkill incidents were randomly distributed along the roads. Reptiles and birds had most roadkill, and paved roads had a higher number of roadkill than unpaved roads on a per kilometre basis. Most roadkill happened during the hot-wet season. More awareness of roadkill risks is needed to ensure protection of biodiversity in the protected areas.