Wildlife vehicle collisions in Utah: An analysis of wildlife road mortality hotspots, economic impacts, and implications for mitigation and management.

摘要

In the US, the roaded landscape has had serious ecological effects. We studied wildlife-vehicle collisions occurring on the 248 state routes in Utah from 1992 to 2002. We tracked trends and patterns in deer-vehicle collisions, evaluated all routes for frequency of deer kills, and identified "hotspots" (segments of road with high concentrations of collisions per mile). We found pronounced patterns: e.g., 61.15% of all collisions occurred on only 10 routes. We studied the effects of posted speed limit and annual average daily traffic flow and found that no relationship existed between traffic volume and/or posted speed limit and the number of wildlife-vehicle collisions that occurred. We put the economic costs associated with wildlife vehicle collisions into a public safety perspective and confirmed that associated costs, damage, injuries, and loss of resources are significant aspects of DVCs that require attention and justify mitigation.