Section Navigation

General Information

• ARC-supported activities
• Community and schools
• Discovery newsletters
• Freedom of Information Guidelines
• Glossary
• How applications are assessed
• Industry & corporate partners
• Information for managers
• Information for researchers
• Media releases
• NCGP Dataset
• Publications
• Research Management System
• Research Outcomes

Breadcrumb Navigation

Down to Earth
with Professor Vicki Sara  

Watching out for wildlife

Looking forward to a well-earned holiday? Road trips are a fun and exciting way to enjoy Australia's beautiful landscape, but they can be easily spoiled when native animals wander out onto the road ahead.

This sad scenario is more common than you would think, according to the NSW Wildlife Information and Rescue Service (WIRES). WIRES estimates that 7,000 native animals are killed on New South Wales roads alone, every single day.

The social and economic costs of wildlife 'road kill' are significant: human injuries and fatalities, loss of biodiversity, passenger distress, motor vehicle damage and high insurance premiums are just some of the results.

In an effort to reduce the high incidence of such accidents, University of NSW researchers Dr David Croft and Dr Daniel Ramp are being funded by the Australian Research Council to develop a map of the wildlife road kill black-spots on NSW roads.

The researchers are collaborating with Koh & Associates, the International Fund for Animal Welfare and NSW WIRES to investigate sensory threats to animals, using sight, sound, smell or a combination of these senses to keep animals off the road.

Informed by global positioning data collected by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and WIRES, the team is looking at factors which attract native animals to particular spots along roads. For example, the researchers are studying the impact of seasonal and time-related factors on road-risky animal behaviour.

The team's findings will enable it to create predictive models of road kill and thereby develop techniques to help prevent future potential wildlife-vehicle collisions. These techniques could then be applied across the nation's road system in a national effort to stop our tragic road kill phenomenon.

Until then, please be alert to Australian wildlife while you're on the road.

For more information about this project, you can send an email to Dr Daniel Ramp at d.ramp@unsw.edu.au

Professor Vicki Sara is CEO of the Australian Research Council.

Published in the June 2004 issue of Friday Magazine.

Top of page