Tassie Devils winning as virtual fences cut wildlife roadkill

A SIMPLE piece of technology has halved the roadkill rate for wildlife on Tasmania’s roads in a trial on the state’s West Coast.

TECHNOLOGY can reduce the number of native animals being killed on Tasmania’s roads with a trial showing virtual fencing halved the number of pademelon and wallaby deaths on just one stretch of highway in the State’s West Coast.

Tasmanian research published today found the small, easily transported and installed virtual fence devices warned wildlife of traffic activity and they responded.

The paper: “Roadkill mitigation: trialling virtual fence devices on the west coast of Tasmania” was published in the Australian Mammalogy journal today.

Lead author Dr Samantha Fox, from the Save the Tasmanian devil Program, says the research showed the devices could have a significant impact on reducing the roadkill of native species across Australia.

“Tasmania has an abundance of medium-sized, nocturnal macropods and this together with narrow windy roads and fast speed limits, results in a high roadkill rate,” Dr Fox said.

“We studied roadkill on a single stretch of the Arthur River/Marrawah Rd on the west coast for a three-year period to determine whether virtual fence devices were effective.

“The results show a reduction of 50 per cent in total roadkill, and that of the common species (pademelons and Bennetts wallabies). This suggests that these devices have enormous potential to substantially reduce roadkill rates.”

Dr Fox said the virtual fence devices do not completely remove the risk of animals being hit by vehicles.

“This confirms the belief that the devices alert animals to the oncoming traffic rather than frighten them away from the road altogether,” Dr Fox said.

In the trial area, pademelons and Bennetts wallabies made up most of the roadkill found across the three-year period.

“Many unique mammal species no longer found in the wild on mainland Australia are still found in Tasmania, and that makes mitigating roadkill hot spots an important conservation tool to help maintain presence of these species in their last remaining stronghold,” Dr Fox said.