Wildlife roadkill patterns on a major highway in Kashmir Himalaya

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.