Posted in human-wildlife conflict, wildlife and cars, wildlife and roads on September 17, 2012 | 6 Comments »
Finally! (and I didn’t even have to learn Swedish!)
If you’d like to know more about what’s ahead in collision prevention technology—potentially a real life-saver for both human and non-human animals—navigate on over to the Car Talk website and check out my guest blog post.
Busy travel corridors call for advanced technology (Photo: Antony Stanley, Creative Commons license)
Posted in American crow, American robin, amphibians, bats, behavior, birds, black bears, blue jay, clues and signs, coyote, deer, eastern box turtle, eastern cottontail, fox, green anole, Habitat, human-wildlife conflict, Invertebrates, mammals, natural history, opossum, raccoon, red-tailed hawks, reptiles, skunks, snails, suburban sprawl, turkey vulture, turtles, wildlife and cars, wildlife and roads, writing spider, tagged animal behavior, bears, black bear, cottontails, coyotes, crows, Deer, elk, foxes, frogs, habitat, hidden nature, hidden wildlife, Highway, insects, lizards, moose, Mule deer, Nature, nesting, opossums, plant communities, rabbits, raccoons, ravens, red-tailed hawks, Road, Roads and Highways, skunks, snails, songbirds, spiders, suburban wildlife, toads, turtles, urban wildlife, voles, vultures, watchable wildlife, White-tailed deer, wildlife, wildlife and roads on May 20, 2012 | 4 Comments »
Roads are both a blessing and a curse for wildlife (Photo: Colleen Greene, Creative Commons license)
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Ever dreamed of going on a safari? Then fasten your seat belt, start the engine, and hit the road. Any road. I’ll bet you dollars to donuts—take the time to look and you’ll spy enough wildlife to satisfy, Bwana.
Sure, some of the creatures will be easier to spot than others… for the simple reason they’re no longer moving. But I’m not proposing a road-kill road-trip. Trust me, the city streets, shady neighborhood boulevards, highways and byways offer plenty of opportunities for wildlife watching. Naturally, the species on display depend on the size of the road, its location, the season, time of day, and the speed limit.
Let’s say your motoring down a divided highway, a conduit to and through the all-American suburbs. The big stuff (aka megafauna), such as deer, elk, moose, bears, and even coyotes, can be seen at 65+ mph (although not always in time to either admire or avoid them). Certain birds of prey, red-tailed hawks in particular, can be seen at both speed and distance due to their habit of hanging out high on handy utility poles to scout for snacks. Anything more petite will be visible only if it’s on the shoulder or trying to cross the road. Scavengers looking for a free lunch can be seen out on the open road day (crows, ravens, vultures) and night (opossums, coyotes). That meal ticket can quickly turn the diner into dinner for someone else… and so on.
Beyond mowed blacktop borders, in the woods and taller grasses, you’ll find rabbits, foxes, raccoons, skunks, and groundhogs. Based on my own non-scientific observation, to improve your chances of seeing these meso- (medium-sized) species as well as small but brightly colored male songbirds in situ you’ll have to ease up on the gas pedal and let the speedometer drop to 35-45 mph, tops.
A bicycle (or even a horse if you have access to one) would probably set the right pace for a rider to notice mice and voles, lizards, turtles, frogs and toads, as well as female songbirds (who tend to have less flashy wardrobes than their ready-for-the-disco menfolk). The truly diminutive critters—insects, spiders, snails and slugs—are hard to spot at more than arm’s length so it’s best to set off on foot and plan for a leisurely pace if spineless quarry is your goal. A general rule: the slower you go, the more you’ll see—that’s what makes the backroads more appealing for this kind of trip than a superhighway.
In poetry, novels, song, and cinema people often speak of the allure and romance of roads—the ones that calls us, the ones less traveled, the ones that go on forever, choosing between high ones and low ones. Wild animals rarely have access to books and mp3 players and RedBox kiosks, though, and I’ve never found them to be all that interested in popular culture… so what’s the attraction?
To build a road through a previously undeveloped area, the first thing that happens is clearing a swath of the existing plant community, be that trees and shrubs or grasses or cacti. Once the project is completed (or even while it’s still in progress) new plants begin to colonize the bare soil, creating a plant community that’s different from the surrounding landscape along with an edge where new and old meet. Disturbing the soil stimulates the germination of seeds that may have sat dormant for a long time waiting for the right conditions. Soil may be brought in from somewhere else as part of the construction process along with seeds from plants that are completely novel in this setting.
Since the plants predict what kind of animals will be found in any ecosystem, the new habitat creates opportunities certain wildlife species will exploit… but in most cases it won’t be the species that were living happily in the pre-construction habitat. Edge species will colonize the area, often using the right-of-way as a travel corridor before and after the road is completed. Some organisms will hitchhike to their new home on and in the bodies of larger animals or even motor vehicles. Birds, bats, and flying insects will drop in from above. Wild things are always jockeying for space and there’s no such thing as a vacant lot in nature—at least, not for long.
Make no mistake—roads are a significant cause of habitat loss and their presence is detrimental to many types of wildlife. For others, though, the resulting edge provides exactly what they need to thrive. This includes our most familiar next-door nature species. In fact, the reason blue jays, robins, white-tailed deer and other edge-loving species are so common in human communities is because Homo sapiens is also an edge-loving species. Our roads are simply one very conspicuous example of that fact.
The natural world is never static; it’s always in flux and each day there are new winners and losers. Are roads good or bad for wildlife? It depends on the species. But there’s no doubt they are a boon for wildlife watchers.
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© 2012 Next-Door Nature—no reprints without written permission from the author (I’d love for you to share my work. Just ask first.). Thanks to these photographers for making their work available through a Creative Commons license: Colleen Greene (black bear); e_monk (black vulture); Matt Reinbold (groundhog); MoDOT Photos (edge habitat); Allan Harris (pronghorn).
Posted in human-wildlife conflict, mammals, packrat, reptiles, rodents, snakes, wildlife and cars, tagged Car Talk, Flora and Fauna, human-wildlife conflict, mammals, National Public Radio, Nature, NPR, packrat, Ray Magliozzi, rodents, snakes, suburban wildlife, Tom Magliozzi, urban wildlife, wildlife, wildlife and cars on March 31, 2012 | 2 Comments »
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Add another accomplishment to my resume as official wildlife guru and animal-vehicle biologist for NPR’s Car Talk—the 14th most popular radio show on the U.S. airwaves and the 6th most popular if you exclude shows that feature a some kind of shock-jock (and that, I’m sure hosts Tom and Ray Magliozzi would agree, is pretty shocking).
No April fooling. In addition to answering questions for their Wildlife & Your Car FAQ page and helping a Wyoming caller understand why horses consider the hood of her car an appropriate alternative to chewing gum, I’m now a guest blogger on the site as well.
Wrangers Escort Gremlins shares some listener tips for preventing and humanely discouraging packrats and other rodents from turning your engine compartment into an apartment and an ingenious method for convincing snakes (pet pythons as well as serpent strangers) to vacate the interior of your preferred form of motorized transportation. Why wait? Click and Clack on over to the blog site before you find yourself staring into a pair of beady eyes or on the receiving end of a forked-tongue raspberry. And while you’re there, feel free to add comments on my post and offer any tips you may have for dealing with vehicle-wildlife conflicts. You never know… maybe your advice will be featured further down the road.
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