RACT and Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary calling for drivers to slow down on Tassie roads

Tasmania’s motorists are being urged to slow down as more and more carcasses of the state’s iconic wildlife continue to line the roads, leading wildlife and motoring authorities say. Watch one woman’s tender care of a joey left to live without its mum.

Hope for change is what keeps one wildlife carer’s spirits up as she looks after animals like ‘Baby Joe’, whose mother was killed on a Tasmanian road amid a statewide “roadkill crisis”.

Ruth Waterhouse is joining a chorus of voices urging Tasmanian drivers to slow down at dusk and dawn to help decrease rising rates of roadkill being found on the state’s roads.

More than 500,000 animals are killed on Tasmanian roads each year and leading animal rescue organisation Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary and RACT have joined forces for a month-long campaign to improve road safety outcomes for humans and animals.

RACT chief advocacy officer Garry Bailey said Tasmania is the worst performing state in terms of road safety and it was coming at a cost to native wildlife and human lives.

RACT and wildlife rescuers are uniting this Animal Road Accident Awareness Day to combat Tasmania’s alarming roadkill crisis. RACT Chief Advocacy Officer Garry Bailey and Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary Director Greg Irons. Picture: Chris Kidd

“Tasmania is grappling with a severe roadkill crisis, which poses a dual threat to both our native wildlife and the safety or our drivers,” Mr Bailey said.

“It is a bad look for Tasmania to have dead animals on our roads.

“What we need to do is convince people they need to slow down at dawn and dusk when there are more animals on the road.”

RACT data shows in 2023, there will be 1000 wildlife-related vehicle insurance claims through RACT and 3000 across the state.

Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary director Greg Irons said the centre will eventually reach capacity if drivers don’t change their behaviours on the roads.

“If people spent one week with us, even one day and saw what these animals go through when they are hit by a car, the behaviour would change immediately,” he said.

“It just seems year after year, we’re yelling and screaming the same message with great support from people like RACT … yet the numbers are going up every single year.

“For Tassie tourism, we’re a clean green image with carcasses littering the road.

“We’ve got to start walking the walk not just talking the talk.”

RACT and wildlife rescuers are uniting this Animal Road Accident Awareness Day to combat Tasmania’s alarming roadkill crisis. An orphaned Tasmanian Pademelon at Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. Picture: Chris Kidd

Ms Waterhouse will have the 400g orphaned joey in her care until he reaches about 2kg.

She said the state’s motorists must change the way they drive to see a change.

“There are more joeys out there and animals in care than there are carers, so let’s fix that but let’s go to the source of the problem,” Ms Waterhouse said.

“Our roads go across their pathways, their pathways to food, to mates, to new territories, they aren’t going to change, but we need to change.

“It really is a dire situation.”

Originally published as RACT and Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary calling for drivers to slow down on Tassie roads