Sad news from South Texas: the past year has seen a surge in ocelots dying on roads. Can underpasses help. My blog on the news released by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service yesterday.
-
Venezuela mystery mammal photos + new mammal/bird blog
andyboyce, , General Mammal Watching, 0
Hello all, I’m new to the mammalwatching world, mostly a birder in the past, but I’m broadening my horizons....
-
Common dolphins reshuffled
vdinets, , General Mammal Watching, 0
A new paper analyzed the systematics of Delphinus and found that D. capensis is not a valid species. Apparently,...
-
Mammalwatching paper
vdinets, , General Mammal Watching, 22
Dear All, I am writing an essay about current and potential importance of amateur mammalwatching for science and conservation;...
-
A Hollywood Twitch
Jon Hall, , General Mammal Watching, 0
OK its birds… but the song remains the same. And I’m excited jon THE BIG YEAR – starring Owen...
-
Flying Squirrels & Forest Patches
mattinidaho, , General Mammal Watching, 0
Researchers in Tongass National Forest, Alaska radio track northern flying squirrels to see how big a forest patch they...
-
World Mammal List
VC25Photo, , General Mammal Watching, 0
I’m on the hunt for a world mammal list with English and scientific names in Excel format. Does anyone...
-
Aussie Bat Research 100 years behind…
Jon Hall, , General Mammal Watching, 0
A nice article on how little is known about the taxonomy of Australia’s bats … http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/bat-taxonomy.htm
-
The Mammal Watching Blog
Jon Hall, , General Mammal Watching, animals, mammal watching, mammals, trip reports, wild, 2
In 2005 I set up www.mammalwatching.com to provide information on where and how to see the world’s 5,000 or so...
Subscribe to mammalwatching.com
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- Jim on Taxonomy news
- Vladimir Dinets on Taxonomy news
- Vladimir Dinets on Taxonomy news
- Matt Heinicke on Taxonomy news
- Morgan Churchill on Taxonomy news
This is indeed sad, but it could have a few explanations:
1. Drivers in Texas are less careful this year
2. Ocelots in Texas come near the roads more and become roadkills
3. There’s a dramatic increase in the number of Ocelots in Texas, and therefore we see more ocelot road kills..
I’d like to think it’s the 3rd option, which is happy. But of course this happiness is off-banced by many of them dying on the roads.
The most likely explanation is that ocelots move around more, probably due to low rodent numbers, unusual weather, or both.
There’s also a 4th option which I just thought of, which is not happy either:
4. There is substantially more traffic nowadays in that part of Texas and therefore more cats are getting ran over 🙁
Good points Tomer. Dispersing males account for most of the deaths. That said,there has been a huge increase in traffic in that area in the past few years. I visited this area 2 years ago, and the growth, border issues, etc are just staggering. It was hard to get my head around it all. And all this amidst incredible wildlife/biodiversity.
We volunteer for a local organization that spearheaded the movement for both a wildlife bridge and under crossing across a nearby major road. The results so far have been excellent and we are now monitoring cameras to gather data to propose another crossing over I10 which is the freeway between Phoenix and Tucson. Hopefully, they see similar positive results in TX.
I think these wildlife bridges and under crossings are the best way to reduce roadkill and damage to people and cars. It’s really a win-win.
For more information on the Tucson crossings see http://www.sonorandesert.org/.
Alan D
That’s a great project. Thanks for sharing, Alan. Wildlife crossings can be very effective. They need to be part of road improvement plans. It is easier to add them when construction is underway rather than retrofitting existing roads.