Characteristics of road kill records collected by local government: Evaluating its utility for monitoring
2019
Jingu, S. | Sakata, K. | Ito, T.
For the purposes of biodiversity conservation and wildlife management it is becoming increasingly important to monitor mammals in urban environments as well as protected areas. While previous studies suggested road kill records collected by local governments as useful information sources to monitor urban wildlife populations, it is essential that the utility of road kill records are evaluated. In this study, we focused on the characteristics of road kill records' locations with its surrounding land use and roads, and compared its output with existing research. We found through the analysis of 997 mammalian road kill records of 10 species, that they were most commonly located at the vicinity of multiple-laned busy roads. Furthermore, road kill density distribution trends did not differ greatly between forested, agricultural or urban areas, with the majority in close proximity to each land use type. Our findings show that local government road kill records agree more with existing wildlife research results than citizen-reporting bias. We conclude the utility of road kill records are sufficient to monitor mammals in urban setups.
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