Wildlife roadkill patterns on a major highway in Kashmir Himalaya

Iqram ul Haq, Sabeehah Rehman, Bilal A Bhat, Khursheed Ahmad, Riyaz Ahmad

Abstract


In the face of increasing road networks in the Western Himalayas, road-kills of wildlife are increasing. In order to generate a baseline data, we carried a preliminary study from March to August, 2019 on 45 km stretch of the Srinagar–Leh National Highway NH-1 in northern India which connects the newly formed union territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. The highway traversing through Sindh Valley and passing adjacent to Thajwas-Baltal Wildlife Sanctuary was surveyed to describe the patterns of roadkill. The survey of six months recorded roadkill of 64 individuals (0.14 roadkill km−1) comprising 19 species from different terrestrial vertebrate groups, of which two species, house cat (Felis catus) and domestic dog (Canis lupus), were domesticated species. Mammals constituted 37.5% (0.055 roadkill km-1), followed by birds 24% (0.034 roadkill km-1), reptiles 21% (0.032 roadkill km-1) and amphibians 17% (0.025 roadkill km-1).  Excluding amphibians and reptiles, there were significantly more roadkill on road sections adjacent to the protected areas (59%) than in sections adjacent to non-protected areas. The study besides being a baseline for future studies revealed that the roads act as potential threat to wildlife and animals killed by vehicles are driven possibly by the spatial resource arrangement.

Keywords


roadkill, Kashmir Himalaya, Thajwas-Baltal Wildlife Sanctuary, Sindh

References


Ansara TM. 2004. Determining the ecological status and possible anthropogenic impacts on the Grass Owl (Tyto capensis) population in the East Rand Highveld, Gauteng. MSc thesis, Rand Afrikaans University, South Africa.

Baskaran, N. & D. Boominathan. 2010. Road kill of animals by highway traffic in the tropical forests of Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, southern India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 2(3): 753-759.

Braunstein MM. 1998. Roadkill: driving animals to their graves. Animal Issues 29(3): 22–28.

Caro TM, Dobson A, Marshall AJ, Peres CA. 2014. Compromise solutions between conservation and road building in the tropics. Current Biology 24: 722–725.

Caro TM, Shargel JA, Stoner CJ. 2000. Frequency of medium sized mammal road kills in an agricultural landscape in California. American Midland Naturalist 144: 362–369.

Collinson WJ. 2013. A standardized protocol for roadkill detection and the determinants of roadkill in the Greater MapungubweTransfrontier Conservation Area, Limpopo province, South Africa. MSc thesis, Rhodes University, Grahamstown.

Drews C. 2008. Roadkill of animals by public traffic in Mikumi National Park, Tanzania, with notes on baboon mortality. African Journal of Ecology 33: 89–100.

Eloff PJ, van Niekerk A. 2005. Games, fences and motor vehicle accidents: spatial patterns in the Eastern Cape. South African Journal of Wildlife Research 35: 125–130.

Erritzoe, J., Mazgajski, T. D., &Rejt, Ł. (2003). Bird casualties on European roads—a review. ActaOrnithologica, 38(2), 77-93.

Gunson KE, Ireland D, Schueler F. 2012. A tool to prioritize high-risk road mortality locations for wetland-forest herpetofauna in southern Ontario, Canada. North-Western Journal of Zoology 8: 409–413.

Gwilliam K, Foster V, Archondo-Callao R, Briceño-Garmendia C, Nogales A, Sethi K. 2008. The burden of maintenance: roads in sub-Saharan Africa. AICD Background Paper 14 (Phase I). Washington, DC: The World Bank.

Holdo RM, Fryxell JM, Sinclair ARE, Dobson A, Holt RD. 2011. Predicted impacts of barriers to migration on the Serengeti Wildebeest population. PLoS ONE 6: e16370.

Kambourova-Ivanova N, Koshev Y, Popgeorgiev G, Ragyov D, Pavlova M, Mollov I, Nedialkov N. 2012. Effect of traffic on mortality of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals on two types of roads between Pazardzhik and Plovdiv Region (Bulgaria) – preliminary results. ActaZoologicaBulgarica64: 57–67

Périquet S, Roxburgh L, le Roux A and Collinson WJ. 2018. Testing the value of citizen science for roadkill studies: a case study from South Africa. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 6, p.15.

Pons, P. (2000) Height of the road embankment affects probability of traffic collision by birds. Bird Study, 47:1, 122-125.

Raman, T. S. (2011). Framing ecologically sound policy on linear intrusions affecting wildlife habitats. Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysuru, India.

Ramesh T, Kalle R, Downs CT. 2015. Sex-specific indicators of landscape use by servals: consequences of living in fragmented landscapes. Ecological Indicators 52:8–15.

Reijnen, R., R. Foppen, C.T. Braak& J. Thissen (1995). The effects of car traffic on breeding bird populations in woodland III: Reduction of density in relation to the proximity of main roads. Journal of Applied ecology 32: 187-202.

Rytwinski T, Soanes K, Jaeger JA, Fahrig L, Findlay CS, Houlahan J, … & van der Grift EA. 2016. How effective is road mitigation at reducing road-kill? A meta-analysis. PLoS one, 11(11), e0166941.

Santos SM, Carvalho F, Mira A. 2011. How long do the dead survive on the road? Carcass persistence probability and implications for road-kill monitoring surveys. PLoS ONE 6: e25383.

Seshadri KS, Yadev A, Gururaja KV (2009). Road kills of amphibians in different land use areas from Sharavathi river basin, central Western Ghats India. J. Threatened Taxa. 1(11):549-552.

Smith-Patten BD, Patten MA. 2008. Diversity, seasonality and context of mammalian roadkill in the southern Great Plains. Environmental Management 41: 844–852.

van der Hoeven CA, de Boer WF, Prins HH. 2009. Roadside conditions as a predictor for wildlife crossing probability in a Central African rainforest. African Journal of Ecology 48: 368–377.

Vos CC, Chardon JP. 1998. Effects of habitat fragmentation and road density on the distribution pattern of the moor frog, Rana uruilis. Journal of Applied Ecology 35: 44–56.

Williams ST, Collinson W, Patterson-Abrolat C, Marnewck DG, Swanepoel LH. 2019. Using road patrol data to identify factors associated with carnivore roadkill counts. Peer J 7:e6650


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

COPYRIGHT of this Journal vests fully with the National Instional Institute of Ecology. Any commercial use of the content on this site in any form is legally prohibited.