The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources and William and Mary’s Institute for Integrative Conservation lead the Wildlife Vehicle Collision Mitigation Project in Virginia that is gathering data to help reduce the number of collisions with wildlife that occur on roads.  As traffic and road development increases, wildlife-vehicle collisions are having a significant impact on the persistence of important wildlife species and create health and economic risks to drivers.  The project is actively seeking volunteers to help identify wildlife species from camera trap photos from seven locations in Loudoun County where wildlife-vehicle collisions are common.  Below is more information about this project from them along with a video of how you can help.

Imagine  this scenario: a four-lane highway, cars speeding down the road, honking.  Now imagine you are a deer, or any species of wildlife, trying to cross the road. Wildlife face these challenges every day, and wildlife vehicle collisions occur. The consequences of these collisions result in major economic costs and risk human and wildlife safety. Rapid urbanization and road construction fragments habitat, leading to roadkill.

In partnership with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources and The Institute for Integrative Conservation, the Wildlife Vehicle Collision Mitigation Project in Virginia aims to reduce these collisions by designing an effective, streamlined and accessible camera trap project to support decision making of mitigation structures. Underpasses, culverts and fencing are all examples of mitigation structures that connect habitats for wildlife. These structures need to be based on animal behavior and their preferences to make sure wildlife will use these structures. Prey species would prefer large, open spaces to cross, like an underpass, whereas a predator species would prefer a narrow, dark space to cross, such as a culvert. At areas with high wildlife-vehicle collisions, a camera trap study was conducted to understand which species are at these sites to inform decision makers.

To process all the camera trap photos, a Zooniverse project was created to identify and catalog species within the photos. Over 80,000 photos were taken, and they all need species identification. With your help classifying these photos, we can provide information to decision makers on  how to  mitigate collisions at these sites to protect humans and wildlife. In her presentation, Sofia Politte, the lead student researcher of the camera trap project, explains how to use Zooniverse, including how to create an account, navigate the site and classify species. Watch her presentation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E45kkZr5B6a0QBOdGv786vapCWlnqlYo/view.

If you have questions, reach out to Jordan Green, Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, District Biologist at jordan.green@dwr.virginia.gov.

If you are a Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy volunteer participating in this project, please remember  to record your volunteer time on the Volunteer Hours form by selecting the Wildlife Road Monitoring Activity.

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