Journal article
Movement re-established but not restored: Inferring the effectiveness of road-crossing mitigation for a gliding mammal by monitoring use
K Soanes, MC Lobo, PA Vesk, MA McCarthy, JL Moore, R van der Ree
Biological Conservation | Published : 2013
Abstract
Wildlife crossing structures are commonly used to mitigate the barrier and mortality impacts of roads on wildlife. For arboreal mammals, canopy bridges, glider poles and vegetated medians are used to provide safe passage across roads. However, the effectiveness of these measures is unknown. We investigate the effect of canopy bridges, glider poles and vegetated medians on squirrel glider movement across a freeway in south-east Australia. We monitored structures directly using motion-triggered cameras and passive integrated transponder (PIT) scanners. Further, post-mitigation radio-tracking was compared to a pre-mitigation study. Squirrel gliders used all structure types to cross the freeway,..
View full abstractGrants
Awarded by Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank the Baker Foundation, The Australian Research Centre for Urban Ecology, the Australian Research Council (Grant LP0560443), The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, The Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment (ANZ Trustees Foundation), VicRoads and the New South Wales Roads and Maritime Services for support. Andrea Taylor and Paul Sunnucks made valuable contributions to the development of this project. Thanks to Doug Black for generously loaning us the PIT scanning equipment and Ross Meggs for his technical assistance. All animals were trapped under the University of Melbourne Animal Ethics Committee permit (0810924.3) and the Department of Sustainability and Environment wildlife research permit (10004763). W. Sowersby, S. Harvey, E. Hynes, R. Soanes, P. Zambrano and R. Bull provided help with data collection. Thanks to Tony Clevenger and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.