Roads kill billions of animals globally each year, causing enormous individual suffering and threatening wildlife populations - mitigation measures can dramatically reduce this mortality.
Road mortality is one of the largest sources of human-caused wildlife suffering in developed countries. Individual animals experience trauma, internal injuries, broken limbs and prolonged death - suffering that is entirely preventable with appropriate infrastructure investment. Beyond mortality statistics, roads fragment habitats, isolating populations and reducing genetic diversity. Welfare-focused road planning means considering not just traffic flow but wildlife connectivity and mortality hotspots from project design through to monitoring and adaptive management. Small changes - hedgehog holes in garden fencing, removing debris from culverts - can make meaningful local differences.