Statistics about animal roadkill on Taiwan’s freeways showed that the Formosa Freeway (Freeway No. 3) had the highest number of roadkill, while the most common species killed by vehicle collisions on freeways are medium-to-large bird species, followed by dogs and cats.
On Friday evening, a driver driving on Freeway No. 3 at Baihe (白河) near Tainan struck a Formosan sambar deer that was walking on the freeway, killing the deer and severely damaging the vehicle, police said.
More than 90,000 instances of roadkill were reported between 2009 and 2022, and the species included 22 mammals, 103 birds, three amphibians and 23 reptiles, according to the Freeway Bureau’s statistics.
Photo courtesy of the Freeway Bureau
Medium-to-large birds were the most commonly killed, and five most common types of birds were doves (including spotted dove, red-collared dove, oriental turtle-dove, emerald dove and Japanese green pigeon), wild pigeons, sparrows, and Javan mynas (including crested myna and common myna), accounting for 46 percent of all roadkill cases.
Cats and dogs accounted for about 26 percent of the cases, while other commonly recorded mammals include Formosan masked palm civets, Formosan hares, red-bellied squirrels, small rodents and bats. The most common reptiles were Taiwan banded kraits, cobras, stink rat snakes, soft-shell turtles and Chinese striped-necked turtles.
As Freeway No. 3 and the National Sun Yat-sen Freeway (Freeway No. 1) are respectively the longest freeways in the nation, they recorded the most animal roadkills. Freeway No. 3’s proximity to mountain areas and wild animal habitats was a contributing a factor.
In terms of roadkill density, National Freeway No. 10 in Kaohsiung ranks first, with an average of 13.8 roadkills per kilometer per year, followed by Freeway No. 3 and Freeway No. 1, which average of 6.2 and 5.6 roadkills per kilometer per year, respectively.
The species found in roadkill varies between different freeways, the data showed.
The first wildlife crossing for helping animals safely traverse freeways was the improvement of an existing crossing in April 2010, and later a freeway animal roadkill mitigation adding up to 40km was established in the following decade, including three wildlife overpasses and 14 wildlife underpasses.
Wildlife crossing effectiveness assessment has shown that the numbers of target conservation species that died on roads have significantly reduced after the wildlife crossings were built.
The Freeway Bureau first began surveying animal roadkill on freeways during a conservation project in 2007 to reduce the roadkill numbers during the mass migration of purple crow butterflies.
The freeway roadkill survey is jointly conducted by the bureau’s Engineering Division, road cleaning and maintenance personnel, as well as incident response personnel, who keep records of the roadkill circumstances and species.
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