Slow down to protect our precious wildlife
THANK you to zoologist Dr Michael Driessen and the Mercury for printing the article, Roadkill cut by COVID” (May 7). It was certainly informative reading and clearly demonstrated a definite link between traffic, speed and roadkill numbers.
Let’s hope the local and federal pollies and road design engineers consider these findings when next building or redesigning existing roads and highways. Speed is not necessarily the be all and end all where endangered wildlife are at risk.
During a recent stay in the beautiful St Helens district, I enjoyed the stunning coastline. But further north along the Ansons Bay road to Policemans Point there’s a particularly rough and corrugated 3 to 4 km section where neighbouring property fences enclose the road and thus do not allow any exits for the wildlife unfortunate enough to be skittled by fast vehicles that are on the road frequently.
The large sign depicts our marvellous marsupial wombats and warns drivers to take care as they are frequently found along the road. This appears to be a signal for some of the road users to speed even more. I counted four roadkill wombats in this corrugated section and one other animal, a wallaby, along the rest of the road.
Even more galling is that all of the dead wombats were, as far as I could see and smell, free of the sarcoptic mange devastating other populations around our state. What a tragic and inhumane waste of these beautiful and captivating wild creatures.
Philip Sumner Blackmans Bay