COVID-19 related travel restrictions prevented numerous wildlife deaths on roads: A comparative analysis of results from 11 countries

Bíl, Michal; Andrášik, Richard; Cícha, Vojtěch; Amir, Arnon; Kruuse, Maris; Langbein, Jochen; Náhlik, András; Niemi, Maarit; Pokorny, Boštjan; Colino-Rabanal, Víctor J.; Rolandsen, Christer Moe; Seiler, Andreas

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109076

Cited by 43 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 28 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…There have been a growing number of AVC cases worldwide due to expanded road networks and growing traffic volumes 19 , which are more intensified in urban environments 20 , 21 . Annually, an estimated 194 million birds and 29 million mammals are killed annually on European roads alone 22 with ungulates alone exceeding 1 million per year 23 . In a recent study, Bíl 22 found that wildlife vehicle collisions (WVC) had mostly reduced in many countries during the COVID-19 lockdown, albeit with varying rates.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal-vehicle collisions during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020 in the Krakow metropolitan region, Poland

Basak

O’Mahony

Lesiak

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The interrelations between human activity and animal populations are of increasing interest due to the emergence of the novel COVID-19 and the consequent pandemic across the world. Anthropogenic impacts of the pandemic on animals in urban-suburban environments are largely unknown. In this study, the temporal and spatial patterns of urban animal response to the COVID-19 lockdown were assessed using animal-vehicle collisions (AVC) data. We collected AVC data over two 6-month periods in 2019 and 2020 (January to June) from the largest metropolis in southern Poland, which included lockdown months. Furthermore, we used traffic data to understand the impact of lockdown on AVC in the urban area. Our analysis of 1063 AVC incidents revealed that COVID-19 related lockdown decreased AVC rates in suburban areas. However, in the urban area, even though traffic volume had significantly reduced, AVC did not decrease significantly, suggesting that lockdown did not influence the collision rates in the urban area. Our results suggest that there is a need to focus on understanding the effects of changes in traffic volume on both human behaviour and wildlife space use on the resulting impacts on AVC in the urban area.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal-vehicle collisions during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020 in the Krakow metropolitan region, Poland

Basak

O’Mahony

Lesiak

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“… Łopucki et al (2021) observed a decrease in road-killed hedgehogs by 50% in comparison to previous 2 years of monitoring in the city of Chelm (Poland) during lockdown. Furthermore, a recent study showed a decline in roadkill numbers from 11, mostly European, countries ( Bíl et al, 2021 ), not including Austria. However, after the lockdown the numbers rose again to the previous level.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…, police reports, professional monitoring, carcass removal), but not on citizen science data. One study even excluded data based on citizen science from analyses due to potential confounding effects during lockdown periods ( Bíl et al, 2021 ). It is therefore crucial to understand what kind of effects lockdowns have on citizen science data to address potential biases or confounding effects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A decrease in reports on road-killed animals based on citizen science during COVID-19 lockdown

Dörler¹,

Heigl²

2021

PeerJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background To avoid the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 in early 2020, many countries have implemented strict lockdown measures for several weeks. In Austria, the lockdown in early spring has led to a significant drop in human outdoor activities, especially in road traffic. In Project Roadkill, a citizen science project which aims to collect data on road-killed animals, we observed a significant decrease in reported roadkills. Methods By asking the citizen scientists through a survey how their travelling routines were affected, we investigated if the observed decrease in roadkills was grounded in less animals being killed by traffic, or in citizen scientists staying at home and thus reporting less road-killed animals. Results A majority of the respondents stated that they felt to have reported less roadkills during the lockdown, regardless if they changed their travelling routine or not. This observation in combination with the overall decrease in road traffic indicates that fewer animals were killed during the lockdown. We conclude that when analyzing citizen science data, the effects of lockdown measures on reporting behaviour should be considered, because they can significantly affect data and interpretation of these data.

show abstract

“…the roadkill). For example, Bíl et al [19] found that reduced traffic across 10 European countries and Israel, during spring 2020, decreased the overall road mortality by 19% in comparison with predictions based on 2015-2019 roadkills. Similar results were found by Shilling et al [20] for 4 states in the United States, and by other studies at the local scale (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Assuming that susceptibility to collisions with vehicles partially depends upon individual traits critical for the adaptation to urban environments and man-made infrastructures, like boldness [24] , WVC can exert long-term evolutionary pressures on wildlife populations in anthropized environments [25] . Due to these two aspects and altogether with preliminary evidences on the strong effect of COVID-19 countermeasures on roadkills [19][20][21] [22] , determining robust estimates about shifts in WVC during lockdown periods (LP) across multiple assembly of wildlife species is becoming paramount for obtaining a comprehensive picture about COVID-19 (but also traffic and changes in its volume) as a global driver of ecological change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roadkill in a time of pandemic: the analysis of wildlife-vehicle collisions reveals the differential impact of COVID-19 lockdown over mammal assemblages

Pokorny¹,

Cerri²,

Bužan³

2021

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Collisions with vehicles are a major anthropogenic cause of mortality for wildlife, with conservation and evolutionary implications. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries worldwide enforced lockdowns which importantly reduced traffic, and therefore had unprecedented consequences for global wildlife populations. We modeled how the two lockdown periods in spring and autumn 2020 influenced wildlife-vehicle collisions in Slovenia (central Europe), by comparing long-term (for the period 2010–2020) and high-quality time series data on road mortality of seven mammalian species: European roe deer (n = 53,259),red fox (n = 9,889), European badger (n = 5,170), brown hare (n = 5,050), stone marten (n = 4,267), wild boar (n = 1,188), and red deer (n = 1,088). We decomposed 2010–2019 data through autoregressive Bayesian Generalized Additive Models, and then we compared 2020 data to forecasts, aiming to estimate anomalies in number of collisions during both lockdown periods. During the spring lockdown (16 March – 30 April 2020), we observed far less collisions than in the 2010–2019 average as well as in 2020 forecasts, for roe deer and badger. In the autumnal lockdown (20 October – 31 December 2020), we observed significantly less collisions for roe deer and wild boar. Traffic reduction in both lockdown periods had a major impact on roe deer, which in autumn and spring 2020 experienced 270–330 less road-related mortality cases than expected. COVID-19 lockdown reduced traffic-related mortality for the majority of studied species. In some species, this decrease reached a magnitude of biological significance, which can have long-term repercussions on both evolution and management. Obviously, large-scale sanitary policies, imposing a reduction to human mobility, can have large-scale impacts on wildlife. As pandemics may increase in the next decades, we encourage further research exploring the consequences of their enforcement over global change and wildlife conservation and evolution.

show abstract

COVID-19 related travel restrictions prevented numerous wildlife deaths on roads: A comparative analysis of results from 11 countries

Cited by 43 publications

References 28 publications

Animal-vehicle collisions during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020 in the Krakow metropolitan region, Poland

Animal-vehicle collisions during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020 in the Krakow metropolitan region, Poland

A decrease in reports on road-killed animals based on citizen science during COVID-19 lockdown

Roadkill in a time of pandemic: the analysis of wildlife-vehicle collisions reveals the differential impact of COVID-19 lockdown over mammal assemblages

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About