When wildlife and humans share the same environment, there is a potential for conflict to occur. This can be split into several categories:
Often wildlife suffers not because of the deliberate actions of humans, but because of carelessness or ignorance.
A significant area of conflict is traffic accidents. People often drive too fast to be able to stop if an animal runs out in front of them, and at night their headlamps can dazzle an animal just long enough to prevent it avoiding a collision. Most of the time its small animals that are killed, but larger animals are often killed. In the UK it is a common sight to see dead hedgehogs, squirrels or rabbits lying on or by the side of the road after they have been killed by a vehicle hitting them, but larger animals such as foxes or badgers or even deer are also seen lying dead by the road.
In Africa the large distances often mean people travel fast in areas with lots of wildlife - both inside and outside national parks. This can result in significant numbers of animals being killed or injured after collisions. When travelling at night, some animals may lie in the road as the tarmac retains heat longer than the surrounding soil and therefore are likely to be hit, and other animals run out with no warning. At night in particular some animals or birds are extremely difficult to see so animals that are active at night are at particular risk near roads.
Collisions between vehicles and wildlife are not just potentially fatal for the wildlife - they can also be fatal to the occupants of the vehicle or cause serious damage to the vehicle. A bird such as a guinea fowl may be flying at just the right height to hit the vehicle windscreen, and it has enough weight coupled with the vehicles speed to smash the windscreen and hit anyone in the front of the car. Hitting a warthog as it runs across the road is likely to smash the front of a car and damage the radiator leaving an immobilised car (and a dead warthog). Hitting a large antelope such as a Oryx (also called the Gemsbok) has even more risk as the Oryx has a lot more weight and will cause more damage, and its horns could potentially pierce the windscreen and driver.
It is important that people drive more carefully in areas with wildlife around. To help warn drivers about the presence of wildlife, some countries have erected warning signs. In Namibia it is common to see signs with warthogs or antelope on to warn drivers, but in the Luderitz area Ingrid Wiesel from the Brown Hyena Research Project convinced the authorities to erect a special Brown Hyena warning sign following a number of Brown Hyena deaths on the roads.
As well as the main public roads around Luderitz, Brown Hyenas are also at risk in the diamond mining area as the diamond mining operations require lots of trucks travelling on roads through the Brown Hyenas territories.
Sadly this does result in some of the Brown Hyenas being killed, but the Brown Hyena project is working with the diamond mining industry to try and reduce the number of accidents.
In Zimbabwe, the Painted Dog project convinced authorities to erect Wild Dog warning signs to help cut down the number of Wild Dogs killed on the roads there.
In Namibia and other parts of Africa other road signs can be seen warning of wildlife.
© Predator Conservation Trust.
