Comparison of environmental, biological and anthropogenic causes of wildlife–vehicle collisions among three large herbivore species

Abstract

Wildlife-vehicle collisions are of increasing concern with regards to the continuous and accelerating anthropogenic development. Preventing and mitigating collisions with wildlife will require a better understanding of the environmental and biological drivers of collision risks. Because species of large mammals differ in terms of food requirements, habitat selection and movement behaviors we tested, at the management unit level, if the density of collisions with red deer, roe deer and wild boar differed in terms of spatial distribution and explanatory factors. From 20,275 documented collisions in France between years 1990 and 2006, we found marked differences in the most influential environmental factors accounting for the density of collisions among the three large herbivore species. The effect of road density was higher for the red deer than for the two other species and did not level off at our spatial-scale of observation. As expected, the annual hunting harvest-interpreted as a proxy of population abundance-was positively associated with the density of collisions for all species, being the strongest for red deer. While the collision density decreased with the proportion of forest in a management unit for wild boar, it increased with the fragmentation of forest for red deer that commute among forest patches between day and night. To reduce the number of wildlifevehicle collisions, our results suggest to generalize road fencing and/or a control of abundance of large herbivore populations. Mitigation measures should target units where the collision risk is the highest for the most problematic species.

Human–Wildlife Conflicts in Krakow City, Southern Poland

“…Conflict incidents with red foxes were recorded in autumn, summer and winter. These patterns of HWC are consistent with reports of AVC [41,[89][90][91].…”

“…Both ungulate species are common in urban habitats in Poland [31,59,60]. Although showing high plasticity of habitats occupancy, they still require within their home ranges the presence of shrubs and forest patches, which allow for shelter and food provisioning [41,43]. Red fox as typical generalist species with an omnivorous diet easily adapts to the urban cores, being medium-size animals and with nocturnal activity can avoid confrontation with humans [27,91].…”

“…For avifauna, we hypothesised that conflict situations would arise more frequently during seasonal migrations, mainly in spring and late autumn [17,31,51]. For spatial patterns, we generally predicted that the frequency of HWC in an urban matrix will concentrate mainly in the vicinity of green patches, i.e., forest, grassland, which are most likely to be utilised as urban habitats by wildlife [41,52].…”

“…Moreover, taking into consideration the rapid human population growth rate and increasing demand for access to land and resources, it can be expected that HWC will increase in numbers even more [ 1 , 36 ]. Recently, the encroachment of large-bodied animals like big cats (leopard Panthera pardus ) [ 37 ] bears (e.g., black bear Ursus americanus ) [ 38 ] or ungulates including moose ( Alces alces ) [ 39 , 40 ], red deer ( Cervus elaphus ), and wild boar ( Sus scrofa ) [ 41 ] into urban lands, have arisen.…”

Overabundant wild ungulate populations in Europe: management with consideration of socio‐ecological consequences

“…Ungulates are the main species involved in wildlife‐related road traffic accidents in Europe (Groot‐Bruinderink & Hazebroek 1996, Langbein et al 2011). The increase in ungulates throughout Europe, and the increased road network (with consequent fragmentation of habitats; Lagos et al 2012), has enhanced the rise of UVCs (Seiler 2005, Langbein 2006, Langbein et al 2011, Saint‐Andrieux et al 2020). For example in Spain, there have been increases of 3600% and 300% in UVCs with wild boar and red deer respectively from 2006 to 2012 (Sáenz‐de‐Santa‐Maria & Tellería 2015), and in Sweden, there has been an increase of almost 600% in UVCs with wild boar from 2003 to 2012 (Savberger 2010 in Thurfjell et al 2015).…”