Effectiveness
of short sections of wildlife fencing and crossing structures along highways in
reducing wildlife–vehicle collisions and providing safe crossing opportunities
for large mammals
Marcel
P. Huijser,Elizabeth R. Fairbank, Whisper Camel-Means, Jonathan
Graham, Vicki Watson,Pat
Basting and Dale Becker
Biological Conservation.Volume 197, May 2016, Pages 61–68
Here is
a good paper for those interested in wildlife fencing. Wildlife fencing in
combination with crossing structures is the most effective strategy to reduce
large mammal–vehicle collisions while also maintaining wildlife connectivity
across roads. The down side is that it affects the beauty of the
environment and it is costly. To overcome this, length of fencing is often
reduced arbitrarily.
Here the
researchers investigated 1) whether short fenced road sections were similarly
effective in reducing large mammal–vehicle collisions as long fenced road
sections (literature review), and 2) whether fence length influenced large
mammal use of underpasses (two field studies).
The researchers
found that 1) short fences (≤ 5 km road length)
had lower (52.7%) and more variable (0–94%) effectiveness in reducing
collisions than long fences (> 5 km) (typically > 80%
reduction); 2) wildlife use of underpasses was highly variable, regardless of
fence length (first field study); 3) most highway crossings occurred through
isolated underpasses (82%) rather than at grade at fence ends (18%) (Second
field study); and 4) the proportional use of isolated underpasses (compared to
crossings at fence ends) did not increase with longer fence lengths (up to
256 m from underpasses) (second field study).
The
authors signs off with the remark “Data suggest fence lengths of at least
5 km. While longer fence lengths do not necessarily guarantee higher
wildlife use of underpasses as use varies greatly between locations, wildlife
fencing can still improve wildlife use of an individual underpass.”
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