The Challenge of Studying Wildlife-Vehicle Collisions

Annually in the U.S., wildlife-vehicle collisions cause 1-2 million large mammal deaths, 26,000 human injuries, and 200 human fatalities. Collisions between wildlife and vehicles have increased by 50 percent over the most recently reported 15 years, costing Americans $8 billion annually. Additionally, roads can act as barriers to wildlife movement, reducing animals’ ability to find adequate food, water, or mates, or complete their seasonal migrations.

While data exist for crashes with wildlife that are reported to law enforcement and insurance companies, these represent only a small fraction of all wildlife-vehicle collisions, and generally only include crashes with common animals the size of a deer or larger. Some states collect information on where maintenance crews remove roadkill, but this is not universal or standardized.

Crash and roadkill data provide some insight into the impact of wildlife-vehicle collisions on human safety, but they do little to aid our understanding of the impact of roads and traffic on wildlife. Citizen-gathered data is crucial to fill this gap in order to plan and implement solutions that benefit both people and wildlife.

Technology Enables Volunteers to Assist Road Ecologists

To improve and standardize road-related wildlife data available to federal land managers—such as in national parks—a new tool was created. The National Park Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service partnered with the Western Transportation Institute (WTI) to develop the ROaDs (Roadkill Observation and Data System) tool to facilitate collection of data on wildlife-vehicle interactions on federal lands with a smartphone app.

To address the need to standardize data collection outside of federal lands and to enlist volunteers in collecting the data, the Center for Large Landscape Conservation worked with WTI to adapt the ROaDS system for other users, including citizen scientists. The Center is now helping to make the ROaDS tool widely available to local coalitions, nonprofit organizations, tribes, and other groups for use in road ecology projects.

The easy-to-use smartphone app allows citizens to get directly involved in road studies in their communities. The data they collect assists road ecologists in developing a comprehensive understanding of the effects of highway corridors on wildlife movement and survival. This information can then be used by community members, local officials, and state agencies to ensure that transportation plans include measures that reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions and habitat fragmentation, making transportation infrastructure safer for people and wildlife. 

The Center provides set-up, training, and consultation to groups that want to use the ROaDS tool. Some groups then undertake the data-collection effort on their own, while others work with the Center on volunteer recruitment and training. The Center also compiles and analyzes the data for some projects and has developed an online dashboard that allows app users to observe their contributions in real-time. 

ROaDS Tool in Action

With the ROaDS tool, community members record locations of both roadkill and live animals they observe as they go about their daily lives and utilize the major roadways in their area. For example, citizen scientists are currently monitoring stretches of US Highways 89 and 191 in Montana. These areas connect Yellowstone National Park to large swaths of public land that provide important seasonal habitat for some of North America’s most iconic wildlife species.

The information gathered with the help of citizen scientists will provide area communities and county and state officials with valuable information on wildlife-traffic interactions. Future transportation planning efforts can utilize this information to improve traveler safety and maintain healthy and resilient wildlife populations in the Greater Yellowstone Area. 

How it Works

The ROaDS tool takes only about five minutes for a citizen scientist to download and set up on a smartphone. Then whenever travelers spot wildlife along a stretch of road within a study area, they can pull over to complete a brief form on their phone or have a passenger record the information. Typically, the entire process takes a minute or less.

The data a citizen scientist enters in the app then appears on the dashboard, allowing volunteers and the public to visualize sightings readily. Decisionmakers can use the dashboard data as an additional set of information about traffic safety and wildlife population protection, making roads safer for humans and animals alike in the future.

Learn More

For information on using the app to collect data for your group or organization’s project, contact Elizabeth Fairbank, Corridors & Crossings Program Officer, at liz@largelandscapes.org

If you travel daily in one of the Montana study areas (Highway 191 or 89) and wish to use the app as a citizen scientist, contact Braden Hance, Conservation Associate, at bradenhance@largelandscapes.org

Read more about projects and groups that are using the app:

Yellowstone Safe Passages

US-191 Wildlife & Transportation Assessment

To address dwindling elephant numbers and growing threats—including infrastructure development and collisions with cars and trains—the 13 range countries (see map, below) where Asian elephants still live met in 2017 and signed the Jakarta Declaration for Asian Elephant Conservation. The declaration includes prioritizing actions to reduce infrastructure development in “Asian elephant conservation landscapes” and increasing communication and collaboration among the countries so elephant movement is considered in planning for all development. As a contribution to the countries’ conservation objectives, the Center’s International Connectivity Program is supporting collaboration of experts through the Asian Elephant Transport Working Group (AsETWG).

As a growing network of 25+ members, the Asian Elephant Transport Working Group provides solutions for avoiding and mitigating the impacts of linear transport infrastructure—especially roads, rails, and canals—on elephants. Formed as a joint collaboration of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group (CCSG) and the IUCN Species Survival Commission Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG), the working group is focused on contributing to the improvement of core habitats and movement corridors that are threatened by new development and upgrading of linear infrastructure.

To inform a more comprehensive understanding of the issues and solutions, the AsETWG will release a groundbreaking publication later this year titled “Protecting Asian Elephants from Linear Transport Infrastructure.” Chapters will detail specific impacts and conflicts, discuss emerging technologies, provide general recommendations, and detail seven case studies exemplifying highway or railway measures to protect elephants.

This report, along with the international leadership of the Center and its partners, represents a milestone in new contributions toward efforts to help endangered Asian elephants thrive once more.

Learn more about the Asian Elephant Transport Working Group (AsETWG)

Learn more about the Center’s International Connectivity Program

Photo, top: Asian elephants on highway near Corbett Tiger Reserve, India. Photo courtesy of AG Ansari

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We are pleased to feature one of our valued partners: the Salazar Center for North American Conservation, founded in 2018 at Colorado State University. The Salazar Center supports and advances the health and connectivity of the natural systems and human communities of North America. Their intersectional approach builds bridges that connect academic research, community practice, and policy development, with a focus on both large landscapes and urban environments.

An emphasis on climate resilience and racial equity is woven throughout the Salazar Center’s work. Flagship programs include an annual international symposium on conservation impact in September and a series of incentive prizes designed to spur innovation.

The Salazar Center and the Center for Large Landscape Conservation have partnered on several landscape-scale conservation initiatives. Leaders from both organizations serve as key members of the Executive Committee of the Network for Landscape Conservation and, through the Network, collaborated on a report on inclusive conservation.

The two Centers are currently engaged in a series of virtual forums about collaborative conservation along the US-Canada border, which will culminate in this year’s Salazar Center fall symposium, featuring high-level decisionmakers from the US and Canadian governments, as well as Indigenous nations.

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We are pleased to announce the publication of our 2020 Annual Report, in which we share some of our exciting work that took place over the past year.

While it was a year full of challenges for all of us, we forged ahead with our efforts to reverse fragmentation, restore nature’s resilience to climate change, and support community-led action. You’ll read stories illustrating the impact we have made, both locally and globally, with the help of our valued supporters and partners.

Here are just a few highlights from the Annual Report:

• The Center continued on-the-ground efforts to support the work of the sovereign tribes of Montana as they lead the development of climate-adaptation and land-use plans.
• We worked with states to advance connectivity policy; 13 U.S. states have now enacted wildlife corridor legislation or executive orders.
• On behalf of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, we released the first-ever, international “Guidelines for Conserving Connectivity through Ecological Networks and Corridors.”
• The Center focused on its journey to better understand the connection between conservation, our work, and the principles of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Our fight to combat ecological fragmentation has never been more urgent. Fragmented landscapes isolate and weaken animal populations, increase the risk of disease spillover from animals to humans, and disrupt the natural cycles we rely on for food, water, and clean air. As we continue to face a global pandemic, we are reminded that ecological connectivity conservation is a means to protect and restore health—the health of landscapes, wildlife, and people.

We hope you will join us in celebrating what we have accomplished—together—in 2020, while we look ahead to tackling the challenges of 2021 with large-scale, science-based, and inclusive solutions.

Read the 2020 Annual Report

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