Assessment of wildlife road kills along urbanization gradient in Morogoro Municipality, Tanzania
Loading...
Date
2023-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Roads can adversely affect wildlife in two main ways: indirectly, by
destroying or dividing their habitats, and directly, by influencing
animal collisions with vehicles. There is insufficient of studies
regarding wildlife road killing in urban areas, particularly in Morogoro
municipal. In order to assess the extent and context of road kill
among urban wildlife. The study examined (i) how wildlife road kill
composition changes across the urban zones and how road features
impact the occurrence of road kills within the municipality. (ii)
Assessing conservation awareness among drivers on wild animal
kills incidences. Systematic counts of all road kills was conducted
along five roads transects cutting across the urbanization gradient in
the study area from November to May 2024. Further, questionnaires
were administered to drivers within Morogoro municipal to
understand the experiences and knowledge on wild animals.
A descriptive analysis was employed to show kill abundance across
the urbanization zones. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to
compare roadkills between urban zones and within animal taxa
respectively. The results showed that, insects had the highest kill
abundance and birds had the lowest. There was no significance
difference in the overall abundance of road kills between the urban
zones. Nevertheless, there was a notable variation in taxa
abundance across the urban zones. Speed and animal taxa had a
significant positive influence on the number of road kills.
Binomial GLM modeling was employed descriptive analysis
supported with to understand the factors the mostly influence the
perceptions and conservation awareness on the wildlife and animal
road kills in urban landscapes. The results revealed that animal
collisions occurring outside urban areas (55%) were the most
prevalent form of accidents, with mammals being the primary
affected group (35.7%). Further, outside of urban areas, the
statistical model revealed that the likelihood of animal collision on he road increased as driving hours decreased, whereas inside
urban areas, the likelihood of animal collisions increased as driving
hours increased.
Overall, this study emphasizes the substantial impact of road kills on
diverse taxa(classes) and identifies key contributors to these
incidents. Three major environmental concerns emerge: the threat
posed to urban ecosystem functioning by the significant number of
animals killed on roads, including crucial pollinators and seed
dispersers like fruit bats and insects; the negative impact of
designated road over-speeding on wildlife and the lack of
conservation status data for a large proportion of road kills,
particularly among insects, underscoring the need for increased
efforts in investigating invertebrates(insects) biodiversity in urban
landscapes.
Description
MSc Dissertation
Keywords
Animal-vehicle collision, environmental justice, road attributes, road kill, urban ecosystem, wildlife.