Tuesday August 30, 2011
Roadkills and loss of biodiversity
By Dr Nather Khan Ibrahim
star2green@thestar.com.my
Roadkills are accelerating species extinction.
IT is not just forest clearance, drainage of wetlands, habitat alteration, over-exploitation, poaching or wildlife trade that are causing biodiversity loss. Other culprits are the ever-expanding network of roads and growing vehicle numbers.
Animals killed due to collisions or accidents on roads are commonly known as roadkills.
Globally, millions of wildlife, small and big, are killed on roads. In the United States alone, one million animals get hit by motor vehicles each day. This excludes insects and bugs that get smashed on windscreens. Each year, 350,000 deer fatally collide with vehicles in the U.S.
In Malaysia, we too can witness countless roadkills of all kinds of wild and domestic animals. These animals are dead mostly due to speeding vehicles along highways and on rural roads.
Who is at fault for roadkills? Who has to be summoned? While human deaths due to road accidents are noticed, investigated and acted upon, animal deaths are mostly ignored. There are neither investigations nor preventive safety measures taken. No one pays compensation for dead wild animals, even if they are of a rare or endangered species.
The most common victims are the slow-moving monitor lizards, snakes, pangolins and turtles. However, I have seen hundreds of fast-moving animals rolled over on our roads, animals that include monkeys, civet cats, mousedeer, squirrels and birds.
Endangered animals have also become roadkills, such as the tapir, slow loris, elephant and masked palm civet.
Recently, I saw a freshly killed palm civet (musang) at Road B18 from Banting to Dengkil in Selangor. On several occasions, I have had to remove approaching turtles from the road to the jungle. Worse, in some instances, the dead animals are mutilated by people who cut off body parts in the belief that these will cure certain illnesses.
The types of animals and fatality number depend on the habitats and land uses. In forest and wetland areas, the animals killed are mostly wild species while in plantation roads, they are mostly monitor lizards, turtles, snakes, frogs and birds.
During my round trip at roads R132 (Bukit Besi Highway), T123 (Jalan Rasau Kerteh Selatan) and R14 (Jerangau Highway) in Terengganu in July 2006, I witnessed more than 82 roadkills involving mostly civet cats, squirrels, monkeys, monitor lizards, snakes, cats and birds.
Similarly, in a two-hour journey on the coastal east coast highway between Besut and Kuantan, I came across more than 26 roadkills; half of them involved domestic animals. Roadkills reach their peaks in areas where wildlife corridors such as riparian zones or forest strips intersect roads.
Animals come near or cross roads for many reasons, including to: seek food and water; escape from predators or stronger family members in territorial disputes; seek habitat or mates; and sometimes, seek the warmth of the tarmac. Some hungry animals, particularly monkeys, wait by road sides to get food from motorists.
Construction of roads fragment and destroy wildlife habitats. The displaced animals, when seeking new forests, can potentially get run over. Birds tend to come near roads for warmth and food. In the evenings and after the rain, birds are commonly seen flying over roads foraging for insects. Too busy feeding, they might not be able to get away from a fast-approaching vehicle.
To prevent roadkills which threaten our biodiversity, several mitigation measures need to be considered. Several barrier fences have been installed to block animal crossings along the North-South Expressway. Fencing can be considered in other highways and rural roads, especially where roads pass through forests, wetlands, rivers and wildlife migration corridors.
In Europe, measures to reduce roadkills include eco-ducts, eco-passages and eco-bypasses for wildlife. These can be used in Malaysia too. Elevated highways over wetlands or lowland forest, wider bridges, wider vegetative buffers and wildlife-safe tunnels, are important and need to be introduced along our highways. Wildlife-crossing signs are important to alert motorists, especially on roads near forests.
To prevent costly land acquisitions, road alignments are usually routed through forests and wetlands. Some decision-makers prefer to have forests fragmented and subsequently, degraded, for vested interests. It is important that the authorities insist on the best route options and mitigation measures to protect wildlife habitats to prevent roadkills. For road development projects which are likely to impact native fauna, advice should be sought from wildlife authorities and specialists.
Roads are important for transportation, for socio-economic development and to increase our standard of living. Nevertheless, the development of roads have affected wild habitats and led to roadkills. Few highways are designed with consideration for animal traffic. If serious attention is not given to the increasing roadkills, we will soon lose more of our priceless biodiversity.
The writer is executive director of Ecotone Environmental Management and an associate fellow at Academy of Sciences Malaysia.
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