Death of mammals on the roads of northeastern Ukraine

Abstract

During 2000–2009, 7468 km of roads in northeastern Ukraine were examined and 122 road-killed individuals of 16 mammal species were found. Among the victims, synanthropic species predominate (54.9 % are domestic cats and dogs), but rare species were also registered including 6 species listed in Appendix III of the Bern Convention. It was found that the most detrimental effect on mammals have the roads with high traffic, and the largest number of road-killed animals was revealed in June (3.05 ind. / 100 km per day). The key factors affecting the death of animals are the following: season, traffic intensity, habitat, biological characteristics of animals and their daily activity and trophic. The average number of road-killed mammals in the studied region during one day at 100 km of roads is 1.6 individuals, and the average number of all vertebrate victims is 20.6 individuals. However, research shows that these numbers are actually higher because some of the animals does not remain in place of collisions with vehicles, and they are dropped out of the road, got eaten by scavengers or die over some time far away from the road after getting crashed by vehicles.

Keywords

• mammals
• roadkill
• monitoring
• northeastern Ukraine