Assessing Road kills rate of animals in countryside (Case study: Southern ring road of Robat Karim town)

Road kill animals are one of the devastating consequences of human-based development on wildlife habitats. Increasing road density and corresponding high road kill rates has become one of the main threats to animal populations. Southern ring road of Robat Karim town is adjacent to the dominant agricultural and horticultural land uses and also is the habitat of some species of animals. From the beginning of Robat Karim Southern ring road’s establishment until now, road kills have had devastating effects on animal populations. In this study, by using spatial records of animal species accidents in Southern ring road of Robat Karim over a 170-day period inventory (October 23th-2018 until April 21th-2019, during 6 months) more sensitive species to road kills, hot spots, and impact of time on road accidents rates were studied. Totally 37 animals were killed during 34 days and they belong to four mammal species, one bird species and one reptile species. The results showed that the highest total number of road kills was for dogs. The number of road kills of red fox species at night, which is associated with darkness is higher than other species. In addition, the number of road kills in February was higher than the other months with eight records. Among the current land uses, road kill mostly have been seen close to agricultural and horticultural land uses. There are hot spots along the road where the number of road kills is high and the number of these spots was calculated as five. Generally low car traffic rate on the road, lack of road lighting (electric posts) and minimum light by car lamps which is the temporary cause of the blindness of animals at night, are the most important causes of road kills in this study.