On a recent drive between Tasmania’s Huon Valley in the south and the picturesque town of Deloraine in the north, I observed a pattern that I had seen during previous trips along the same route.
Eastern quolls near Cygnet, wombats just outside Dysart on the Midlands Highway, echidnas on the winding stretch between the Liffey Forest Reserve and Deloraine. And pademelons, so many pademelons. At the same time, my car radio reported that Tasmanian devils had been spotted on Woolnorth Road in the north west of the state.
Lovely? You’d think so.
Tasmania is known for its natural beauty and endemic wildlife but motorists on the island are more likely to see these species flattened than free. Residents and frequent visitors often begin to recognise hot spots and build mental lists, just like mine, of places where time and time again they find motionless lumps of fur.
Roadkill. Even the term is uncompromising.
It’s a problem found wherever wildlife and roadways intersect. However, it is estimated that at least half a million native animals are killed by cars each year in Tasmania, making our roads deadlier for wildlife, per capita, than anywhere else in the world. Recent results from a local wildlife rescue service found that almost a third of injuries to the animals seen were caused by road trauma. For the most part, these animals were abundant species like brush-tailed possums, pademelons and wallabies. However, road traffic is also a particular problem for carnivorous species such as quolls, wedge-tailed eagles and Tasmanian devils that come to the roads to feed on existing roadkill. The number of smaller species (think amphibians, reptiles or birds) is likely underestimated in road impact studies as these animals are simply not seen, or counted, as easily. Worryingly, it is thought that animals that move out of sight after being injured on the road could account for an extra 30 per cent on top of current statistics.
Approximately 90 per cent of the planet can already be reached within 48 hours of leaving a road and projections suggest that, worldwide, the number of vehicles and the length of paved roads will double by 2050. Tasmania is no exception, with steadily increasing population numbers and, until the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, a booming tourism industry.
And yet, at the same time, Tasmania is like no other place. This island state is a sanctuary for several species now found nowhere else, including the pademelons and devils routinely knocked down along the roadside. With 105 of these native species listed as threatened under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) and a land size of just over 68,000 square kilometres, the relatively high density of threatened species per square kilometre in Tasmania means the impact of road trauma is even more concentrated. Many populations are already facing challenges from fragmentation, disease, habitat loss and the impact of invasive species, often making the added pressure from car strike disproportionate.
As with many problems of our own making, the solutions must come from us too. Roadkill campaigns remind us again and again to “Slow down between dusk and dawn”, yet the rate of change seems to be the only thing slowing down.
Despite what the song says, life really isn’t a highway – at least not for Tasmania’s unique native species.
Grace Heathcote is a Tasmanian writer. With a background in ecology and conservation, she has worked throughout Australia but has a soft spot for all things Tasmanian. Her writing has been published nationally, including in The Guardian, and her academic publications can be found in peer-reviewed journals such as Conservation Biology and Wildlife Research.