Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Wildlife Road Mortality in Golestan National Park-North East of Iran
2016
Nowadays,
wildlife road mortality is acknowledged as a main source of threatening
long-term survival of wildlife. This paper as the first to analysis wild life vehicle
collisions in Iran, aims to reconstruct and interpret the spatio-temporal
patterns of WVCs on Asiaei highway in Golestan National Park (GNP). With the
collaboration of environmental protection department of GNP, we identified
about 1900 WVC Records involving 34 different species of mammals, birds,
reptiles and amphibians between 2004 and 2013. Mammals were involved in more
than 50% of overall WVCs, among which wild boar (Sus scrofa), Golden
Jackal (Canis aureus), Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes), hedgehog (Erinaceus
concolor), stone marten (Martes foina) and porcupine (Hystrix
indica) were involved in more than 90% of mammals’ mortalities; So, we
focused on analyzing spatio-temporal pattern of vehicle collisions of these six
mammal species. During the study period, these species have undergone 95%
increase in road mortalities, averagely. Detailed temporal analyses exhibited
an increasing trend of road mortalities from spring to summer and then a
reducing one to late winter. It was shown that a large number of collisions
occurred in holiday periods when recreational trips considerably increased the
traffic volume of Asiaei highway. Preliminary inspection of spatial patterns
using Kernel density analysis revealed six collision hotspots, mostly located
in the road bends with densely forested land cover on both sides; the
promenades along the road seemed to play a significant role too. Scale
dependency analyses of collision patterns, demonstrated clustering pattern at
micro scales less than 10 km, randomness at meso scales 10 - 20 km and both
regularity and clustering at macro scales more than 20 km. This paper suggests
that road mortality of common species in GNP is a momentous issue, which needs
to be considered by relevant governmental and public organizations. We also
emphasize that the analyses of spatial and temporal patterns of WVCs are
fundamentals to plan for mitigate wildlife road mortality.
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