Road Kill Survey No 1
Conclusions
The survey is insufficient to estimate the actual number of animals that are killed on UK roads each year.
The survey has however enabled a number of facts to be established:
- A significant number of animals were killed within the survey area
- There is evidence to suggest that more animals were killed in the survey area, during the preceding year,
than were recorded during the August 31st survey
- In high traffic density areas, animal corpses become decimated. It is suspected that this may happen within
a matter of days. It is also suspected that most evidence of corpses will have been removed within a matter of weeks.
This will become the subject of future research.
Furthermore, the survey enabled the charity to draw the following conclusions about the methodology it employed:
- That survey areas can be segmented into sub-sections in which the number of animals killed
in any given period will range on a scale from low to high
- Surveys may be reliably used to identify the low-to-high rate at which animals are killed on roads in a particular
area and, thereafter, the frequency with which each census should be carried out
- Surveys are currently an ineffective tool for the charity to use for the purposes of collecting data to
establish the number of animals killed in the UK each year at regional, national or local levels. This is
because the charity has not yet established 'representative' areas and is not in possession of a reliable formulae
that it can use for the calculation of a UK estimate of the number of animals killed
on UK roads each year
- Because it is critical to the charity's activities that it has an accurate count of animals killed each year (see About Us
for more information), then conducting censuses on a regular basis is likely to yield better results
- The charity may need to gather additional information during each census / survey, which can be utilised during analysis of that data, and which will be
useful for presenting solutions (such as characteristics of the road and of the surrounding terrain)
- An effective remedy is required to avoid double-counting animal corpses on subsequent censuses.
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Click here
to review the assumptions.
Click here
to review the survey's scope.
Click here
to review the survey's maps.
Click here
to read the survey results.
(Warning! the following link contains images of animals killed by traffic. Most
of these images are graphic in detail. These images should not be viewed by young people or other persons
with a sensitive disposition.)
Click here
to review the survey data. (Please note the above warning)