More animals die on Tasmanian roads than in any other Australian state, a new study reveals.
Data collected by the Save the Tasmanian devil Program has shown nearly 60,000 animals were killed in road related incidents since the Roadkill TAS smartphone app was launched by the state government three years ago.
The grim figures show an average of 32 animals die every hour on Tasmanian roads. Many cases are thought to go unreported.
The report, based on a study that wrapped up in August 2021, encouraged the public to submit notes on their reports and assess “whether citizen science data collected through this approach could usefully inform roadkill mitigation approaches”.
Red lines pictured on a map of Tasmania indicate roadkill hot spots around the islands roadways.
Witnesses wrote incidents of finding more than five animals mowed down on the side of the road at a time.
“Couldn’t stopxjmtzyw. This is a very dangerous road for wildlife,” one person wrote.
Another person wrote: “Three animals mown down on one 20-metre stretch of road. Council refuses to enforce dirt road or after dark speed limits!”
Gruesome discoveries of wallabies, little penguins, endangered Tasmanian devils, echidnas, platypuses, brushtail possums and bandicoots were among the reports.
App data reported nearly 950 Tasmanian devils were left for dead on the side of the road.
The marsupials face extinction with fewer than 25,000 left in the wild.
Tamar Valley Roadkill Initiative President Bruce George told the ABC that Tasmanians need to change their perception on roadkill being a normal, everyday part of life.
“Many people believe that we have grown up with roadkill and the apparent apathy displayed is because people are conditioned to living with it,” he said.
“On a half-a-kilometre stretch of a 60kph straight road in front of our accommodation we counted 24 wallaby carcasses over the Christmas break alone — that's appalling.”
In a statement, the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment Tasmania said it was “investigating options for a new mobile app-based roadkill reporting system.
It said the system “will allow easy reporting of roadkill and streamlined upload to web-based mapping tools where the data will be available for anyone to interrogate”.
