COMING UP IN OCTOBER – NATIONAL TRANSPORT MONTH
Millions of animals are killed on the roads every year, and these incidents often cause injury or death to humans, as well as significant and costly damage to vehicles. By collecting information, we are better able to identify hot-spots, common species involved, and other variables that may come into play, such as weather and time of day. This information better equips us to develop strategies to mitigate the threats that transport infrastructure and vehicles pose to wildlife and humans. One of the ways of counting the number of animals killed on the road is through training route patrol staff to collect the data while on patrol, but we can all do more. October is National Transport Month, and we would like to encourage everyone to get involved by collecting animal road mortality data from all over South Africa. It is super easy!
You can submit your data can be submitted via email: roads@ewt.org.za
OR you can download the smartphone app (EWT Road Watch) and start reporting
• Go to Google Play on your smartphone https://play.google.com/store
• Type in ‘EWT Road Watch’
• Click on ‘INSTALL’, and it will download to your phone
• Once installed, you will need to enter your user details, either your email address or phone number. You will only need to do this once, and we will never share your information
• You can then begin reporting roadkill sightings
• It doesn’t matter if your phone does not have signal, the app will log your location and submit records once you are back in network range.
rated annually on 10 August!
Your support will no doubt help us to protect our wildlife, but please don’t put your own life at risk to collect information. Always consider your safety, and please do not use your phone while driving. When reporting roadkill, please provide the following information:
• Location of roadkill (GPS coordinates)
• Identification of species (as best as possible)
• Date and time seen
• Notes on the local habitat type (e.g. riverine, grassland, rocky, wetland, etc.) are also be useful.
Good identification photos (particularly if the carcass is very squashed) are very helpful BUT only stop and take a photo if it is safe to do so, then try and record the following:
• BIRDS: Tail and wing feathers/beak and feet (if the whole bird is no longer there) and eye
• REPTILES: Scales/head shape/foot shape (if applicable)
• AMPHIBIANS: Foot shape (webbed)/presence of warts/colouration around head and eye
• MAMMALS: Fur/hair colour/body size/teeth type (carnivore or herbivore)