corvusmonedula

corvusmonedula OP t1_je93iva wrote

A small minority, yes. In a study in Ontario ~3% of motorists aimed for them. 3% of the huge volumes of drivers is lots. Add to that that many snakes reach sexual maturity late, and are slow breeders, that's a disaster. In South Africa it's very common, there's an attitude of 'kill first, identify later'.

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corvusmonedula OP t1_je4x6f8 wrote

iNaturalist is for the recording of wild specimens, domesticated or captive species are excluded from the records. I think you'd find reliable numbers for dogs elsewhere (by UL law every dog is RFID chipped), but for cats it may be more difficult, many are just ditched or left to rot and the bodys never recovered.
The distinction of wild/captive is something I could have mentioned clearly.

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corvusmonedula OP t1_je4b9t3 wrote

Mammals make the largest group recorded, but probably not the largest group run over - mammals are simply easier to spot as they are large, and are probably likelier to motivate people to record their presence.
Records of invertebrates were largely uploaded by people moving on foot.
Reptiles probably make a large group of roadkill, because they are relatively slow moving, utilise road surfaces to warm up, are harder to see while driving, and may even intentionally be killed.

E: Data taken from Roadkill UK project on iNaturalist, data for other regions can be exported from Global Roadkill Observations, and the data were plotted using SankeyMATIC, though I would like to plot this in R to save time.

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