Wildlife and Traffic: An Inevitable but Not Unsolvable Problem?

Abstract

The conflict between wildlife and traffic is not a new phenomenon. Where the movement paths of humans and wildlife intersect, the consequences are often detrimental for both. Collisions between traffic and wildlife results in loss of life, injury, and vehicle damage. Roads and railways not only inflict death on wildlife but also impose barriers to movements, fragment habitats, and permit the spread of additional impacts due to secondary development. The overall effect of transportation infrastructure on wildlife by far exceeds the physical imprint of roads on the landscape and, as transportation networks continue to develop, the amount of unfragmented natural habitat is shrinking at an alarming pace. As a prominent global issue, it is essential that we mitigate the impacts of roads and railways on wildlife and the impacts of wildlife on traffic, in order to ensure successful cohabitation of people and wildlife. In this chapter, we discuss the most prominent and critical problems with traffic and wildlife and explain how effective mitigation strategies can be developed. We argue that the mitigation approach must become an integral part in the design and planning of transport infrastructure. The conflict between wildlife and humans along transportation corridors may be inevitable, but it is possible to find a solution.