Satellites can now warn Australian drivers to slow down in roadkill-prone areas, in a bid to stem the deaths of some 300,000 wild animals on the island of Tasmania each year.
Researchers Alistair Hobday and Melinda Minstrell spent three years and covered 9,320 miles (15,000 kilometers) recording and mapping roadkill carcasses before uploading their data into a GPS (global positioning system) navigation program.
"It's a technology that has been used to collect data, understand a problem, and then deliver a potential solution," said Hobday, an ecologist with Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
Just as motorists can program their in-car GPS navigation devices to automatically watch for rest areas or cafes, they can now be alerted when they approach "roadkill hot spots." (See roadkilltas.com for hot spot maps.)
"We're negotiating with car [rental] companies in Tasmania to have this technology installed in every rental car," Hobday said.
"Tourists in particular are often horrified by the amount of roadkill here."
Other deterrents, such as reflectors and whistles on cars, have not worked.
Ninety percent of dead animals found in the study were relatively common creatures like brushtail possums, Hobday said.
But threatened species like endangered Tasmanian devils and quolls were also hit in high numbers, especially at dawn and dusk, when many of the state's nocturnal marsupials emerge to feed.
Cars striking moths and other insects at night start chain reactions—possums are killed as they forage on the insects, attracting bigger predators like devils that in turn became victims, he said.
Hobday said a 20-percent reduction in nighttime speeds could cut wildlife deaths by half.
Findings presented in the journal Wildlife Research.
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