Roads kill millions of wild animals daily worldwide, representing one of the largest direct human-caused sources of wildlife mortality and a significant but underappreciated animal welfare issue.
Road collision mortality represents a vast and largely invisible animal welfare problem. Each road-killed animal experiences an injury event that ranges from instantly lethal to severely injurious, potentially including prolonged suffering before death. For common road-killed species including hedgehogs, badgers and deer, the individual welfare cost of road mortality is real and substantial. The scale creates population-level welfare concerns for species that cannot sustain current mortality rates. Mitigation through wildlife crossing structures, vegetation management to discourage road proximity and speed reduction in identified high-mortality zones provides genuine welfare and conservation benefits. Road ecology is an evidence-rich field whose findings remain underutilised in infrastructure planning.