We uniquely are capable of apprehending the difference
between right and wrong, good and evil, proper and improper conduct toward
animals. If being human isn't what requires us to treat animals humanely, what
in the world does? Wesley J. Smith
There was no warning. Suddenly, it came straight at her out
of the darkness. In a heartbeat, maybe two, a frightening roar, a blinding
flash, and the brutal impact of steel pulverising flesh and bone. She was
hurled through the air to land a quivering heap on the gravel beside the road.
A last heartbeat trickled blood through her shattered teeth, her one remaining
eye clouding as life fled the traumatised body. She never knew what hit her.
Neither did the little one hidden in her belly clinging desperately to life. The
victim was a young female eastern grey kangaroo with her first and last joey.
The joey had survived, cowering deeper into the security of his mother’s pouch.
But something was terribly wrong. His universe had been violently disturbed.
Now his mother was still. He couldn’t sense her pulse. The smells of blood,
torn flesh and intestinal fluids signalled unknown terror. And her warmth was
ebbing away. Inevitably, he faced a slow and lonely death from cold,
dehydration and starvation. The trucks thundered past all night, oblivious to
these two creatures lying mute and discarded among the human detritus that
lined the road; plastic bags and burger boxes, a cigarette lighter and butts, a
strip of rubber tread, a child’s headless doll.
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| left on the road to be pulverised beautiful creature made macabre monster courtesy of man and machine |
Every hour on Australian roads, vehicles kill six hundred
frogs and reptiles, and one hundred and forty four mammals and birds. That
totals about seven million creatures a year according to incomplete,
conservative and outdated Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates. Apart from
some studies along specific roads focussing on kangaroos, wallabies and
wombats, probably because their size leads to expensive insurance claims and
threatens human injury, we do not have comprehensive statistics on road kill
across the nation. Considering the dimensions of the task, perhaps this is
understandable. In 2010, Australia’s road network extended 820,000 kilometres,
easily enough to pave our way to the moon and back. In that year, 16 million
vehicles used the roads to motor an astounding 226,632 million kilometres,
equivalent to seven and-a-half return trips to the sun.
There are more detailed statistics available for Tasmania.
Avis rental cars even come with a road kill survey form in the glove box for
drivers to fill out. Concerns about the survival of the State emblem have led
to collecting road kill data as a means to monitor the declining population of
Tasmanian devils. There is also disquiet about the Holiday Isle’s image as an
unspoiled wilderness destination for domestic and international tourists.
Thousands of carcasses line the roads through the forests, stark reminders that
this is no island paradise. Despite a concerted effort through numerous
studies, the gruesome annual toll of 300,000 mammals and birds is thought to be
a significant underestimate. But on these figures alone, road kill is a
disaster of epic proportions.
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| New Holland honeyeater stunned on the road and rescued this one was lucky and flew away |
Yet this is only the tip of the iceberg. The statistics do
not account for injured animals that manage to leave the scene and succumb out
of sight of the road. Many animals are parenting when maimed or killed, their
orphaned offspring left to fend for themselves before sufficiently developed to
have any chance of survival. Many joeys die a slow and lingering death hidden
in their mother’s pouch. The toll on insects and other invertebrates is
completely unknown. Many of us will not acknowledge this as an issue, yet
studies in other parts of the world have shown that road kill has contributed
to the local extinction of species like dragonflies. There are wide-reaching
effects of road infrastructure on habitat and wildlife behaviour that
scientists struggle to understand and most of us do not even imagine. Studies
predict that up to twenty percent of the ecology of the United States of
America is directly impacted by roads. But the current climate debate clearly
illustrates our capacity to ignore warning signs, label expert analysis
alarmist, and continue on our habitually destructive ways because negative
impacts do not tangibly impinge upon our everyday lives.
This is not really the case with road kill. It is obvious
and ugly. It is in our faces. It upsets people. Australian tourist operators
and chambers of commerce worry that visitors from all over the world come to
see our amazing wildlife and wilderness, only to be confronted by their hosts’
apparent disregard for the wellbeing of our unique creatures. One tourist was
moved to write; “My wife and I spent two weeks touring Tasmania in 2004. We
were upset with the road kill. It was the worst I’d ever seen. I wrote to the
Tasmanian Government about our thoughts.” It beggars belief that most
individuals and families can love and pamper their pets, watch endless programs
about meerkats, gorillas, whales and dolphins, tune in to countless children’s
programs hosted by actors impersonating wild animals, yet tolerate the systemic
and very public brutalising of much-loved native species like the koala.
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| road orphaned koala joey in care facing an uncertain future |
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