Vehicle strikes kill billions of animals annually. Evidence-based roadkill mitigation measures including underpasses, fencing, and speed management can dramatically reduce this toll.
Roadkill represents an enormous and largely invisible animal welfare crisis. The billions of animals killed annually by vehicles die in ways that range from immediate to prolonged, and the welfare implications of vehicle strikes that cause injury rather than death are poorly monitored. Hot spot analysis using citizen science data allows targeted interventions on road sections where wildlife concentration and traffic create the worst mortality rates. Combining fencing that prevents road access with underpasses that provide safe crossing gives animals behavioral alternatives to road crossing. These infrastructure investments pay back in ecological terms as well as welfare ones.