Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Wildlife-vehicle collisions are a prominent issue becoming more apparent with increasing traffic volumes and wildlife populations. This thesis looks at the effect of road fencing on the frequency of wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC) on 2+1 roads, mainly involving ungulates. By studying WVC on road sections before and after fencing with surrounding road network as controls and controlling for average annual daily traffic, differences in fence efficacies could be attributed to fence characteristics such as fence openings, intersections, cattle grids or jump outs. The results showed a mean accident reduction of 62 % with a range of -1 % to 89 %. The single fence attribute that most strongly correlated with the differences in efficacy was the frequency of connecting secondary roads. Standard procedure to secure connections by extending fences along the connecting roads does not serve its purpose as an effective mitigation measure and must be improved.