Global transportation impacts on wildlife mortality and emerging pathways for mitigation.

Abstract

Terrestrial, freshwater, and marine transportation are fundamental to modern human life, but vehicle collisions with wildlife inadvertently kill hundreds of millions of animals across 2000 vertebrate and invertebrate species annually; however, a comprehensive framework to assess and mitigate these mortalities is missing. We identified and compared the most up-to-date information regarding the impacts of transportation on wildlife mortality to determine cross-cutting solutions to this challenging problem. For example, numerous strategies, such as under- or overpasses traversing roads and railways that increase wildlife-habitat connectivity, policies that enforce reduced speed in areas with active wildlife, and passive sensors that detect wildlife to alert nearby ships and vehicles and enable mandatory speed reductions, can reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions. We explored emerging technological advances that could help further reduce future wildlife-vehicle conflicts and provide a path forward for transportation systems. Specifically, we described how the combination of citizen science, artificial intelligence, targeted studies on wildlife demographic impacts, and cost-effective mitigation efforts will be powerful tools to inform needed future policies to decrease ship speed in areas with threatened whale species and reduce rates of wildlife mortality across ecosystems in a fast-moving world.