Badgers lead mammal roadkill list

By Mark Kinver Environment reporter, BBC News

6 July 2019


More than 900 badgers have been reported as roadkill so far this year.

Almost twice as many of the nocturnal animals have been counted compared with foxes and hedgehogs, which are next on the 2019 mammal roadkill list.

Pheasants top the list of bird fatalities to date, followed by woodpigeons and blackbirds.

Project Splatter, which compiles the data, has received more than 5,500 reports from the public in the six months to June.

Top three mammals (this year so far):
Badger 905
Fox 475
Hedgehog 453

Top three birds (this year so far):
Pheasant 1,347
Woodpigeon 156
Blackbird 93

Among some of the more unusual sightings this year are reports of a beaver found on the A9 in Scotland, and a wallaby near Oxford.

The number of badgers and foxes being recorded as roadkill is generally in proportion with the animals' wider populations. There are an estimated 485,000 badgers in England and Wales, while there are an estimated 250,000 foxes throughout the UK.

Continued

Turtle disaster avoided with roadkill rescue

By Sean Coughlan

31 May 2017

For anyone on a long drive on a country road, one of the bleakest sights is the amount of roadkill you see punctuating the passing miles.

It shows the fatal incompatibility between our need to get to places quickly and wildlife trying to get across a road.

In terms of the odds being stacked up against an animal, it's particularly bad news for the slow-moving turtle. They're not exactly going to sprint away from danger.

But research published by academics at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, reports on the major success of a scheme to reduce roadkill.

The findings are claimed to provide lessons for the global problem of animal deaths on roads.

 
Worst roadkill
The project focused on a road claimed to have one of the worst roadkill rates in the world. Long Point Causeway, a road beside Lake Erie in Ontario, runs through a nature reserve - a Unesco "biosphere reserve" - which is home to a number of endangered species of turtles.



Continued

Badger stew dish of the day for British roadkill fan

DAVIDSTOW (United Kingdom) (AFP) - Take one dead badger, head and all, dust with flour and herbs, season and braise for five hours -- that's the recipe for a perfect stew, according to British roadkill eater Arthur Boyt.

From dogs and cats to polecats and mice, Boyt insists there is nothing tastier than scooping up a dead animal from the roadside and taking it back to his remote home in Cornwall, southwest England, to skin, gut and cook.

Boyt, 74, a nature obsessive whose house is dotted with animal skulls and taxidermy, has been eating roadkill since the 1960s and thinks more people should do the same.

"People say 'oooh, do you really?' when I say I'm having roadkill. I say 'well, if you tried it, you would probably enjoy it'," Boyt tells AFP as a batch of badger stew bubbles away in his kitchen.

"It's not in the taste of the food, it's in the head.

"It's a threshold you have to step over if you're going to eat this kind of stuff. You say 'OK, this is just meat.'"

The retired researcher's favourite dish is dog -- he has eaten two lurchers and a labrador which were hit by cars. He insists he tried to find the owners before eating them.

Boyt compares the "smooth, round, sweet" flavour of dog meat to lamb, adding: "I'd drink a red wine with it -- possibly a Chianti."

Continued

Rise in Roadkill Requires New Solutions - Vehicle–wildlife collisions kill millions of animals (Such as Herps)--and harm thousands of people--each year. Scientists are working on solutions. - via Herp Digest

By Melissa Gaskill , Scientific American Newsletter, Thursday, May 16, 2013 

In the 1960s widening U.S. Highway 27 just north of Tallahassee cut Florida's Lake Jackson into two sections. When water levels fell too low in either part, thousands of turtles, frogs, snakes and alligators would hit the road to head for the other side—where cars and trucks often hit the animals. In February of 2000 Matt Aresco, then a PhD student at The Florida State University in Tallahassee, drove through and was stunned at the sight of dozens of crushed turtles. For the next five weeks he patrolled the road between the lakes, once counting 343 dead turtles in 10 days. "It was so heartbreaking to see dozens of turtles, animals that could be 50 or 60 years old, smashed before they make it two feet onto the road," he says.

Using photos he snapped of the carnage, Aresco convinced the state transportation department to provide nylon fencing, which he set up that April along 1,200 meters on either side of the highway. Between April and August, his makeshift fence intercepted nearly 5,000 turtles that otherwise may have ended up as roadkill.

Across the U.S. vehicles hit an estimated one million to two million animals every year, the equivalent of a collision every 26 seconds, according to insurance industry records. But official numbers of animal–vehicle crashes include only reported collisions, which generally means those with large animals and that result in disabled vehicles, says Jon Beckmann, a biologist with the New York City–based Wildlife Conservation Society. "If you run over a raccoon or skunk, those are rarely reported. When you include those smaller animals, the numbers are probably well up in the millions more."

The animal generally comes out on the losing end of the encounter. Aresco calculated that in 2001 a turtle attempting to cross U.S. 27 had a 2 percent chance of surviving. He even witnessed a turtle shot through the air like a hockey puck after being struck, and says there are documented cases of these shelled projectiles going through windshields. And, according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHA), death by car represents a serious threat to 21 endangered or threatened species, including Key deer, bighorn sheep, ocelot, red wolves, desert tortoises, American crocodiles and Florida panthers. Nine panthers were killed by vehicles in 2011, 16 in 2012 and five as of April 26 this year, says Darrell Land, leader of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's panther team. Those numbers represent significant losses for a population of only 100 to 160 animals that continues to lose habitat to development.

Vehicles, according to Beckmann, Aresco and other scientists, may well be one of the biggest threats to U.S. wildlife populations. According to the Insurance Information Institute, collisions between 2008 and 2010 were more than 20 percent higher than the previous five years. And people in the vehicles suffer consequences, too. More than 90 percent of collisions with deer and nearly 100 percent of those with larger elk and moose cause damage to the car or truck involved, the FHA reports. The Insurance Information Institute estimates that collisions with deer alone cause about 200 human fatalities each year, plus tens of thousands of injuries and $3.6 billion in vehicle damage. The number of deer-related claims paid out by just one insurance firm—State Farm—increased nearly 8 percent while all other claims declined by more than 8 percent. And bad things can happen even when there's no actual collision: Drivers swerving to avoid an animal can run into each other, or off the road. Solutions do exist, although those fighting to protect animals from death by vehicle have found that putting them into practice often proves challenging.

Designing roads with wildlife in mind in the first place would make the biggest difference. "Highway 27 should have been built as a bridge, for example," Aresco says. "It's easier to plan a new road, perhaps put it in a better location or build bridges or wildlife crossings, from the start."

But that strategy, of course, does nothing to improve existing roads or the larger problem of how those roads affect habitats. The U.S. highway system includes almost 6.5 million kilometers of road, not counting dirt or county ones. Those kilometers honeycomb even the most remote parts of the country, fragmenting habitat and making it hard for animals to avoid encounters with pavement. "Ungulates such as deer, pronghorn, moose and elk migrate seasonally, and roads represent a real challenge," Beckmann explains. "And carnivores move across huge areas—grizzly bears, mountain lions and wolverines can have home ranges of several hundred square miles, which gives them a high probability of crossing roads." Reptiles and amphibians, like those turtles crossing Florida's U.S. 27, also travel annually from hibernation to breeding sites.

On those 6.5 million existing kilometers the next best thing is providing a safe way for animals to get from one side to the other. Specially designed crossings, typically vegetation-rich over- or under-passes, have proved remarkably successful at reducing animal–vehicle collisions. But proper design matters.

The makeshift barrier Aresco put up in April 2000 funneled Lake Jackson wildlife through a single 3.6-meter drainage culvert. This often required animals to travel relatively long distances, putting them at risk of overheating and predation. Aresco continued to walk the barrier daily until August 2006, ferrying turtles, snakes and frogs across the busy, four-lane road—first in one direction, then the other, in response to water conditions. In those four years he recorded more than 11,000 animals, including 9,000-plus turtles, attempting to cross. Hundreds continued to die doing so; some climbed over the barriers, and the fencing material degraded rapidly in the hot Florida sun and was repeatedly damaged by mowers, vandals and storm runoff. The biologist once broke his hand making repairs, sporting a cast for six weeks.

Aresco saw the need for a more enduring solution, and set out to find one. He formed the nonprofit Lake Jackson Ecopassage Alliance in 2002, and the group convinced the Florida Department of Transportation (DOT) to conduct a feasibility study. Completed in 2004, it recommended three to four additional culverts and permanent barriers on both sides of the highway. The local transportation authority approved the recommendation, but use of federal funds required an environmental study, a process that stretched into early 2007. Meanwhile, Hurricane Dennis dumped nearly 23 centimeters of rain in July 2005, damaging much of the still temporary fencing and resulting in a car killing a two-meter-long alligator. Rain broke fence sections again in September 2006. By then Aresco had gone to work as director of Nokuse Plantation, a private wildlife preserve two hours away, and had stopped his daily patrols. "That was really hard, knowing there were times there would be breaks in the fence and turtles killed as a result," he recalls. "But it just convinced me even more there needed to be a permanent solution, not just one person to maintain these flimsy fences for the rest of time."

Aresco continued to face setbacks. While he and Alliance volunteers labored to replace the entire length of fence in September 2007, a passing motorist stole eight rolls of the new, UV-resistant material. Nearly 45 centimeters of rain from Tropical Storm Fay damaged the barrier yet again in 2008. Finally, under increasing public pressure, the regional transportation authority and then the DOT made the passage a priority. Construction began in September 2009, and one year later, 1.2-meter-high plastic walls directed wildlife into four culverts along 1.6 kilometers of U.S. 27. The cost: only $3 million; the result: turtle roadkill dropped to zero. That was an "extremely satisfying" end to 10 years of hard work for Aresco. "From the first day I went out there and discovered the problem, putting an end to it motivated me, no matter how long it took."

Elsewhere, wildlife crossings have achieved similar success. Vegetated overpasses spanning major interstates in Canada have reduced vehicle collisions with mule deer and elk by more than 90 percent, and in southern Florida underpasses and barrier fences have reduced panther mortality to almost zero along about 110 kilometers of road. "We know overpasses and underpasses are highly effective when done right," Beckmann says. The trade-off is that crossings can be expensive.

Less expensive options include reduced speed limits and "animal crossing" warning signs. But Beckmann says data show that speed zones don't reduce collisions, at least not without increased enforcement. Warning signs may at least increase awareness, but again, without other kinds of mitigation, probably aren't very effective, he says. For example, despite "panther crossing" signs and reduced nighttime speed limits in areas without crossings, vehicle strikes remain the number-one human-related cause of death for Florida panthers. In Nevada "bear crossing" signs installed in the Lake Tahoe area had no apparent effect on the annual number of vehicle–bear collisions, which have increased almost 20-fold since monitoring began in the mid-1990s—primarily, Beckmann believes, due to the allure of human garbage, more people and traffic moving into bear country, and an increase in the overall bear population.

Roadside animal detection (RAD) systems—computerized signs with flashing lights tripped when an animal breaks a light beam—cost more than simple warning signs but less than most crossings. These can reduce collisions with large animals, the highway administration reports, but wind may trigger false warnings, animals sometimes fail to set off the lights and the trips aren't currently designed for smaller animals. "There is a lot of potential for this technology," Beckmann says, "but reliability has been the limiting factor so far."

In 2012 RADs set to detect panthers went up along two particularly deadly kilometers of U.S. 41 in Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve, the first such system used for animals besides larger deer, elk and moose. The University of Central Florida Department of Biology launched a two-year monitoring study in 2012 to determine the system's effectiveness in detecting and protecting panthers. Researchers survey drivers, look for animal tracks where system logs show a trigger and intentionally trigger the sensors to see whether drivers slow down, according to U.C.F. biologist Daniel Smith.

Despite some successes in reducing mortality in specific areas, millions of kilometers of road remain where animals have no protection at all. Until they do, there simply aren't enough Arescos to go around.

Montana Roadkill Law Allows Motorists To Eat The Animals They Hit With Cars

Kill it and grill it.

Montana may now be the ultimate drive-through destination for adventurous foodies thanks to a new law that allows residents to consume any animals they kill.

The bill, which passed 19-2, allows deer, elk, moose and antelope that have been killed by a car to be harvested for food.

State Rep. Steve Lavin, who introduced the bill, initially included all animals, but Lavin eliminated sheep, bobcats and bears to offset any financial incentive to intentionally hit them.

"We have some animals whose parts are worth quite a bit: sheep, bobcats and bears," Lavin told the New York Daily News. "So I reduced the bill down to deer, elk, moose and antelope. The bill is confined to those four animals for that purpose. Their parts aren't worth what sheep or bear parts are worth."

Lavin, who is also a state trooper, introduced the law because he thought people were missing out on a potential food source.

"As people know, people hit a lot of animals on roadways, and I mean a ton of them," Lavin said, according to FoxNews.com. "There’s a lot of good meat being wasted out 

Read on:

Survey highlights the danger of roads to Iran's endangered cheetah population

On average, two cheetah are killed on Iran's roads every year. 

Major new threat as road is built through key cheetah habitat

January 2013. Recent surveys of the causes of death amongst Iran's endangered cheetah population have revealed that out of 27 known cheetah mortalities caused by various human activities during past decade, roads were the leading cause.

At least 11 cheetah have been killed on different roads between 2005 and 2011. Turan, Bafq and Dare Anjir has experienced road accidents involving cheetahs, but Kalmand's (Just to the south of Yazd) six cheetah deaths have made it the highest-risk range for the cheetahs. These are only the known cheetah deaths, so the actual loss is almost certain to be higher.

Asiatic cheetahs are known to roam large areas and walk long distances, meaning encounter with roads inevitable. However, the majority of existing roads are around main habitats, with a few noticeable exceptions. The loss of 11 cheetah reveals a high importance of managing the entire cheetah range as whole rather than several patchy areas to ensure the species long-term survival.

Major threat
There is now a major challenge for one of the main habitats of the cheetahs in Iran, the Bafq Protected Area, which is seriously threatened due to the construction of a short-cut road through the area's core zone.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/bafq-road-cheetah.html

At least 26 Florida panthers died in 2012 – 40 recorded births

Nearly 70% of Florida panthers were killed by vehicles in 2012

December 2012. This year, 15 radio collared females have given birth to 40 kittens and the uncollared population has produced many unknown litters. In fact, remote trail cameras on the 26,000-acre Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge detected two uncollared family groups on the refuge.

These images of an uncollared female panther moving her three kittens to another den may be the first time anyone has captured a photo of a panther moving her kittens between den sites. It is possible that she moved them when her original dens site got too wet due to 1.03 inches of rainfall in the 24 hours before these photos were taken.

Two months later, on November 25, 2012, the cameras captured the same female with all three kittens following her closely. (Look closely in the bushes in front of the camera for the third kitten).

"These photos were taken about one mile from where the original photos of her relocating her den site and could be the kittens first time out of the new den," said Kevin Godsea, Project Leader at Florida Panther and Thousand Island National Wildlife Refuges.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/panther-florida-2012.html

Some Drivers Intentionally Run Over Turtles, Clemson Student Finds During Experiment (VIDEO)

Posted: 12/27/2012 6:10 pm EST  |  Updated: 12/27/2012 10:33 pm EST

A Clemson University student was surprised by his findings this week after attempting to research the best way to ensure the safety of turtles trying to cross busy roadways.

Nathan Weaver, a 22-year-old senior in the School of Agricultural, Forest and Environmental Sciences, was trying to figure our how to help the turtles in their risky endeavor, but instead ended up discovering the extent to which some drivers go out of their way to flatten the hapless reptiles, according to the Associated Press.

"It was a bit surprising. I've heard of people and from friends who knew people that ran over turtles. But to see it out here like this was a bit shocking," Weaver told the AP.

For his initial experiment, Weaver placed rubber turtles in the middle of a busy street near the Clemson campus in South Carolina and watched as seven out of 267 cars purposely crushed the fake turtles in the space of an hour.

Read more about the experiment here.

Weaver's observations are not necessarily new, however. In July, NASA employee Mark Rober documented his own, similar experiment measuring the rate motorists tried to run over rubber turtles, snakes and tarantulas planted on the roadway.

Of the 1,000 cars Rober watched go by, six percent of drivers went out of their way to try to hit the rubber animals, which were stationed safely on the shoulder, Gizmodo reports.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/27/drivers-intentionally-run-over-turtles-college-experiment_n_2371485.html

And the bride wore... roadkill: Classy but creepy couture collection made from dead animals

If you're struggling to find the money to pay for a show-stopping outfit this festive season you could take a leaf out of artist Jess Eaton's book. She creates her clothes from 'ethically sourced' dead animals such as roadkill.

The controversial fashion designer has launched her second 'Roadkill Couture' range that includes clothing and accessories made from cat fur, alpaca, seagull and goose feathers - and even a human ribcage.

She has also expanded into bridal wear, using white feathers to create headpieces inspired by the fairy stories and books that shaped her childhood.

The Brighton-based designer never pays for her materials and 'ethically sources' them from roadkill and animals that have died of natural causes.

Jess said: 'We eat the meat from animals every day and then we throw away their bones and fur - it's all just waste.

'But when I take these parts of a dead animal and turn them into beautiful pieces of clothing that can be enjoyed for many years to come, it makes people question their feelings about what's acceptable.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2239846/Jess-Eaton-returns-new-collection-roadkill-couture-including-bridal-wear.html#ixzz2Dczipktt

Shot badgers 'dumped on Ellesmere road'

A Shropshire wildlife group says it has evidence badgers have been illegally shot and then dumped on the roadside to make it look like they were roadkill.

The Shropshire Badger Group said it started investigating after members found three animals on a country lane in Ellesmere in September.

Tests revealed the animals were shot and X-rays showed pieces of cartridges.

The group said they believed the animals were being shot by people trying to stop the spread of TB.

Jim Ashley, from the group, said: "Usually when a badger is hit by a car, there is some damage around the head.

"Badgers tend to turn to face the car at the last second and then they get hit - but this damage was just not consistent with that."

He said the three animals had been found dead by a dog walker on the "very isolated lane" overnight on 21 September.

He said the animal's bodies had been laid out in "an odd way" at equal distances away from each other.




Continued: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-20217627

Pine Marten found in Wales – the first in 40 years!

Sadly, the proof is a victim of the roadkill

November 2012. A road casualty pine marten has been found near Newtown in Powys - the first known carcass in Wales since 1971.

‘The significance of this find cannot be overstated,' said Natalie Buttriss, Chief Executive with The Vincent Wildlife Trust. ‘It adds to the body of evidence supporting the long-held view of mammal experts that this attractive tree-dwelling animal does exist in Wales, but in such low numbers that very few people ever see one.'

The carcass was found by local resident Olly Amy on the roadside close to the village of Aberhafesp near Newtown. Olly contacted The Vincent Wildlife Trust after correctly identifying it as a pine marten. DNA analysis carried out at Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland has provided unequivocal evidence that this is a pine marten native to the British Isles. The animal was a young male.

300 reported sightings
In the last 20 years, The Vincent Wildlife Trust has received more than 300 credible reports of sightings of pine martens in Wales and has built up a map of ‘hot spot' areas. Until today, however, the most recent unequivocal evidence was a pine marten scat (dropping) found in Cwm Rheidol forest (Some 40-50 miles from the location of this animal) in 2007 and later positively DNA tested.




Continued: http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/pine-marten-wales.html

Majority of Roadkill Amongst Vertebrates in Catalonia, Spain, Are in Protected Areas

ScienceDaily (Oct. 24, 2012) — Amphibians are the vertebrate group that is more likely to become roadkill in Catalonia, even more so than reptiles, mammals and birds. This is the case according to an international team of scientists who have concluded that highly protected areas are home to more cases of animal death on the roads.

Our network of roads is considered one of the main threats to fauna survival. Researchers at the universities of Barcelona (UB), Porto (Portugal) and Uppsala (Sweden) have studied the number of vertebrate deaths on 820 kilometres of road in North Eastern area of Spain and Portugal.

"The project consisted of analysing the impact of the road network on fauna, leading to numerous studies across the whole of Catalonia to record all specimens of roadkill found," as explained by Núria Garriga, researcher at the UB and lead author of the study headed by Gustavo A. Llorente, a scientist at the same university.

Continued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121024093034.htm

Scott Brown, Wash. State Trooper, Ends Up With Baby Deer In Car

BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- A Washington State Patrol trooper who responded to a report of a deer killed by a truck on Interstate 5 ended up with a 2-month-old fawn in his car.

The patrol says when Trooper Scott Brown arrived at the Bellingham scene on Tuesday evening, other deer in the area stayed back but the fawn – possibly orphaned by the collision – ran up to him. Trooper Mark Francis says the baby deer nuzzled against Brown and started "mewing."

Unsure what to do, Brown picked up the fawn, loaded it into his patrol car and drove it to Sarvey Wildlife Care Center in Arlington.

Sarvey Executive Director Suzanne West says the fawn was severely dehydrated but is doing better. She says it had some minor injuries and might have been clipped by the truck that hit the adult deer. She says it's possible that deer was the fawn's mother.

West says the fawn now has a deer buddy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/14/scott-brown-wash-state-tr_n_1672943.html

Annual GB mammal roadkill survey

Public asked to keep an eye on Britain's animal kingdom

July 2012. In the 60 years of Queen Elizabeth II's reign, mammal populations in Britain have undergone many changes. While some, such as rabbits and foxes have grown in numbers over the decades, other iconic native species such as the red squirrel and hedgehogs have suffered a dramatic decline. Mammals on Roads, an annual survey run by the People's Trust for Endangered Species (PTES), allows motorists, especially families travelling together by car, to record sightings of any mammals, dead or alive, that they spot from their vehicle, contributing towards the charity's efforts to monitor the changing state of Britain's mammals.

Help with the survey

Wildlife enthusiasts can complete the survey via a printed pack or by downloading the Trust's free Mammals on Roads app onto their iPhone. The app makes it easier to take part in the survey on the move: the location of sightings and the routes of participants' journeys are recorded using the inbuilt GPS of iPhones. The information captured is then sent to the Mammals on Roads database and analyzed by wildlife experts at PTES. Journeys that are repeated along the same route year on year especially provide important scientific data on changing populations.  

1 million mammals killed on UK roads every year
PTES Surveys Officer David Wembridge says: "It is a sad fact that around one million mammals are killed on UK roads each year. However, roadkill provides wildlife experts with clues about the state of wild animal populations, as the proportion of dead animals relates to the number of those alive in the wild. Since the launch of Mammals on Roads in 2001, volunteers have surveyed over three-quarters of a million kilometres of road along the length and breadth of Britain. We hope that with the availability of the iPhone app in addition to the paper-based survey, even more people will take part and help us by surveying the country's immense road network for signs of wildlife. In the last sixty years, our mammal populations have undergone huge changes, underlying the need for monitoring to in conservation."

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/roadkill-survey-2-12.html#cr

Alligator killed on I-275 in St. Petersburg after being hit twice in seperate accidents

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Early Sunday morning along I-275 just south of Gandy Blvd., a twelve-foot alligator made its way up a small grassy incline and into the northbound lanes of the highway.  The gator was hit by a 2012 Toyota sedan. 

"Alligators move about quite often at this time of year.  It's not uncommon for an alligator to be crossing a four- or six-lane road," explained Gary Morse of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. 

After the gator was hit the first time, it disappeared into the woods, and then reappeared about a half hour later in the southbound lanes of I-275, where it was struck a second time. 

The impact from the second car killed the gator.   Despite the earlier injuries, the alligator was determined. 

"To try to find something that he's looking for. Be it food, or a place to cool off, or a mate," said Morse. 

Every year, as the weather heats up, so do the activities of the alligator.  That means there's an increased chance of encountering an alligator in locations other than water;  although pools are known to attract them. And the gator is known to attract people. 

"I think that people are fascinated in particular with alligators.  We have so many of them, they tend to interact with people fairly frequently," said Morse. 

But it's that interaction that can lead to trouble if humans make the wrong choice.  It's illegal to feed or intentionally harass alligators because they'll lose their natural tendencies to fear humans.  But often times, people find themselves having to deal with an unwelcome gator. 

"If you have a problem with an alligator, do not try to handle it yourself.  Give us a call and we'll respond.  If it's an emergency, we'll get somebody there real quick," Morse said. 

The FWC's Nuisance Alligator Hotline is 866-FWC-GATOR (392-4286).  The number for the FWC Wildlife Alert Hotline is 888-404-3922.

Read more: http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_south_pinellas/st_petersburg/alligator-killed-on-i-275-in-st-petersburg-after-being-hiit-twice-in-seperate-accidents#ixzz1yEyvIXPV

3 Florida panthers die in the first 10 days of 2012

24 deaths, 32 births documented in 2011

January 2011. Florida panthers are off to a rough start in 2012, with three deaths documented by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). Already, in just the first week of 2012, there were two documented deaths of panthers hit by vehicles on highways in Collier County, where the greatest concentration of panthers in the state is found. The third fatality was caused by a fight with another panther.

2011 births and deaths
Last year, 24 Florida panther deaths were recorded, but FWC biologists also observed 11 radio-collared females giving birth to 32 panther kittens. Overall, the known number of newborn panthers in 2011 appears to have offset the known number of panther deaths. Among the 24 documented panther deaths in 2011, nine deaths, or more than a third, were due to collisions with vehicles.

100-160 panthers alive
Today, an estimated 100 to 160 adults of this federally endangered species live in Florida. Panthers almost disappeared from the wild in this state when their numbers fell to fewer than 30 in the 1970s. Since then, their population has been increasing.

Vehicle collisions top cause of mortality
Collisions with vehicles continues to be the greatest source of human-caused mortality to this long-tailed cat that can weigh up to 160 pounds and grow to 6 feet or longer.

"Florida panther deaths are most often the result of one of two things: collisions with vehicles or aggression from other panthers," said Kipp Frohlich, head of the Imperiled Species Management Section at the FWC. "We can't control panthers fighting when they are defending their territory; that is a part of nature. But we can do something about human-caused panther mortalities."

"People who slow down and drive carefully in rural areas, especially where panther crossings are identified, can make a difference in conservation of this endangered species. It is especially important to slow down and keep a careful lookout at dawn or dusk, when panthers are most likely to be on the move," Frohlich said.

The FWC continues to work with many partners to conserve and increase habitat available to panthers on both public and private lands. This is a critical step to ensuring the survival of panthers, the official state animal of Florida.

Report sightings
People are encouraged to report sightings of an injured or dead panther by calling the FWC's Wildlife Alert Hotline at 888-404-FWCC (3922) or #FWC or *FWC on a cell phone. Another option is texting Tip@MyFWC.com (standard usage fees may apply).

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/florida-panther2012.html

Taxidermist creates animal hybrids in New Zealand

An amateur taxidermist has caused controversy over his hybrid animal stuffings which combine body parts from creatures that have been killed on the roads.

Andrew Lancaster, 57, took up taxidermy in his spare time 14 years ago – shortly after moving from England to New Zealand. Entirely self- taught, Mr Lancaster has experimented with animal creations for the last two years, regarding the work as ‘art’.

“Some people call me sick and some think it’s pretty good,” Mr Lancaster told New Zealand website Stuff. “I saw heaps of dead things on the side of the road and thought it was a waste. When I’m driving along the road and see something I pull up and go back for it,” he admitted.
Mr Lancaster, now living in Tauranga, New Zealand, sells the animal hybrids on Trade Me – the Kiwi equivalent of Craigslist. Working during the day as a marina caretaker, he creates his custom animals in the evenings and on days off.

The amateur taxidermist said he collects birds, pheasants, rats, ferrets and has even found possum babies – discovered inside of their mother’s pouch. Mr Lancaster insists that he only works on animals he finds dead and would never hunt an animal. The unique hybrids have developed a following as his Facebook site ‘Andrew Lancaster Taxidermy Creations’ currently has 241 fans.

Mr Lancaster’s wife has stopped him from keeping many of the animals but he admitted to keeping a pheasant that he “picked up from the road one morning”.     

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/taxidermist-creates-animal-hybrids-in-new-zealand.html

Bizarre roadkill perplexes DNR officials

The mystery animal was ghostly white and hairless, its neck bloated out of proportion with the rest of its limp body.


When Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) officials received a picture of the roadkill from Alexandria, Minn., this week, it wasn't clear what it was.


There were five front toes with long nails, so it most likely wasn't a dog. Several employees, working off the picture, concluded it was a badger.

"If you look at the picture, it is weird-looking," said Jason Abraham, a fur-bearer specialist with the DNR. "If there were four or five of these found on the road, we might have a bit more interest."

The badger, assuming that's what it was, probably lost its hair during the decomposition process, Abraham said. The animal most likely lived in Minnesota, although the species is more commonly found in Wisconsin.

The badger's picture was placed on Facebook, which gave the critter a little notoriety in the Alexandria area.

In 2006, residents of the North Shore were perplexed by a hairless animal roaming the woods. It turned out to be a timberwolf with mange.


http://www.startribune.com/local/126857738.html

Photo: http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/617*425/1badger080611.jpg

Dead bodies grab our interest (Via Herp Digest)

Dead bodies grab our interest
7/24/11, Delmavera.com

Along the road, I recently saw a red-eared turtle of a size that made me think of a 9-inch pie pan. I had never seen one so large. It was moving in a safe direction, so I drove on.

I remembered the half- dollar sized red-eared slider turtles my brothers and I had as kids. Lots of kids owned the tiny turtles -- until they were declared illegal due to salmonella.

When I was a kid, when nobody was observing it, which was most of the time, our last tiny turtle climbed out of its clear plastic habitat with the island, the plastic palm tree and water that needed changing, and vanished.

Once we discovered this disappearance, we developed heightened awareness and concern. We fretted about its safety for several days. When we couldn't find it, we were happy to believe it had escaped the confines of our house and was living blissfully in the woods, eating bugs and growing as big as a pie pan.

Then we forgot the turtle completely.

Years later, the turtle's dusty, mummified body was found behind the gas stove. Now we knew.
Our little pet had not escaped to a long, contented life outdoors, but was likely dead before we noticed its absence. The mummification was interesting, as was the fine detail seen in the turtle's dried features.
A young Ripley would have charged a nickel to see this oddity.

The turtle's death was no more or no less significant than the deaths of untold seahorses and starfish. They are turned into stiff corpses for use as souvenirs and décor for the thoughtless visual delight of humans, especially children. Their stories, more morbid than the merry stories of dying little Christmas trees, are never told.

For some people, a dead member of any species, even human, can amuse -- the dead Bonnie and Clyde, and Hitler, have done so.

Most recently, the dead bin Laden was a rich source for cartoons and jokes.

Today, good examples of our being engrossed with dead humans -- without denying a need for anatomical instruction in the medical field -- are human body exhibits for the public.
Most notable is Body World, consisting of human corpses preserved using plastination, displaying real, peeled-away, naked bodies doing everyday activities -- under the guise of education and entertainment for a profit.

It seems a dead human can offer more amusement, humor and entertainment to other humans than a dead, mummified, tiny turtle or a live, 9-inch, pie-pan sized red-eared slider ever could provide.
» George T. Mason is a former turtle owner and freelance writer who lives in Salisbury.

Tybee Island's pregnant turtles no match for motorists

Tybee Island's pregnant turtles no match for motorists
July 16, 2011 , by Mary Lnders Savannah Morning NewsAround this time each year, diamondback terrapins get an undeniable urge to lay their eggs.
Sadly for many of the lady terrapins in the marshes around Tybee, they have to cross busy U.S. 80 to find a good nesting spot on higher ground.

The race of turtle against traffic rarely ends well for the terrapin, a species that lives in salt marshes from Cape Cod to the Florida Keys and west along the Gulf Coast to Texas.

So far this year, more than 70 terrapins have lost that contest on U.S. 80.

Once numerous, terrapins were hunted to near extinction for the dining pleasure of turtle soup lovers around the turn of the last century. Their recovery from that fad has been slowed by habitat loss, drowning in crab traps and road kills. They're even occasionally threatened by airplanes. Recently, air traffic controllers at John F. Kennedy airport in New York shut down a runway as gravid terrapins crossed it to reach their nesting grounds. Terrapins are listed as a species of concern under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Like the air traffic controllers at JFK, marine educators at Tybee Island Marine Science Center do what they can to help the turtles. On their way to and from work each day, the educators are on mobile crossing guard duty.

One of the marine educators, Lauren Broome, stopped her car one day on her way home from Tybee when she saw one terrapin doing its version of the 100-yard dash.

"She was booking it," Broome said. "They're pretty quick on the street. Four or five vehicles missed her including one with a trailer, then an SUV hit her. The whole time I was cringing."

Broome knew the turtle was a goner but collected the terrapin anyway.

"She was obviously not going to make it, but I wanted to save her eggs," she said. "But they were all crushed."

That's not always the case. Broome and her colleagues have been able to extract eggs from three females and hand them over to Kathryn Craven, associate professor of biology at Armstrong Atlantic State University. Craven and her students incubate the eggs, carefully burying each in vermiculite in its own compartment of a tackle box. So far they have four clutches in the incubator, 24 eggs in all. Two sets are incubating at 25 degrees Celsius to produce males, and two are at 30 degrees Celsius to produce females. The first of the quarter-sized babies should be hatching any day now.
Informal counts of the terrapin road kills have Craven suspecting 2011 has been tough on terrapins compared to last year.

"My conclusion is that there are more animals out on the road," she said. And awareness from motorists may be down.

"As far as I know, (Georgia) DOT didn't replace the turtle signs on the causeway," she said. "They were gone by the end of last season, and there were none this year. It would be nice if DOT would replace them."

That's a concern for Ross Dersch, too. A fan of turtles who keeps yellow-bellied sliders and map turtles along with some red-footed tortoises, Dersch is frustrated the signs are gone.

"It just gets me that nobody puts signs up," he said.

Craven and the marine center educators urge drivers to be on the lookout for terrapins, especially in the evening or after a rain. And they urge would-be rescuers to ensure their own safety first.

"Take it slow," Craven said. "I know there's a lot of pressure in the traffic out there. Take it slow and watch for animals."

Only pull over if it's safe to do so. If you do assist a terrapin, give it a lift to whatever side it's headed, they advise.