Tasmanian devils have a new ‘virtual friend’ in their fight for survival.
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Hobart-based researcher Dr Samantha Fox has discovered that a simple, cheap device has halved the road deaths of Tasmanian devils, spotted-tail quolls, wallabies and possums.
Her study, Roadkill mitigation: trialing virtual fence devices on the west coast of Tasmania, showed that by installing small solar-powered devices along the sides of a road, animal road deaths fell by 50 per cent.
Dr Fox, who works for the state-funded Save the Tasmanian Devil Program, called the devices a virtual fence.
“The devices are mounted on a pole on the side of road every 50 metres on one side, and staggered on the other side so they are at 25 metre intervals, like a zig zag.
“They are the size of a large mobile phone, are solar-powered and are triggered by car headlights. They let off blue and yellow lights and a high pitched sound and that gives the animals advance warning.
“They look up and aren’t startled by a car coming down on them.”
Dr Fox said the devices worked for animals that were active at night time.
Tasmania has an abundance of medium-sized, nocturnal macropods and this together with narrow windy roads and fast speed limits, results in a high roadkill rate.
- Lead author Dr Samantha Fox
The research team worked on an 11 kilometre piece of road between Marrawah and Arthur River. They installed the devices on a five kilometre stretch, and counted deaths over three years.
“The road is quite straight, not windy, and not very undulating. One section had virtual fence devices and the rest, not.”
The results showed vehicles killed just half the average number of common species like pademelons and Bennett’s wallabies, which meant the ‘virtual fence’ was warning animals rather than keeping them off roads altogether.
Urging people to use Roadkill TAS app
Dr Fox said the virtual fences worked well with the phone app Roadkill TAS, which encouraged people to report animal deaths.
“We’ve had about 2000 people logging into the app and reporting roadkill. We need to know where the roadkill is so we can put the money there.
“The greater Hobart area is one of the biggest hot spots but the data is as much about the number of people reporting as it is about the numbers of roadkill.
“We hope more people across the state will start using it.”
Dr Fox said local councils were really keen to do something about roadkill as it was not a good look from a tourist’s point of view. If councils had better data on animal death hot spots, they could install virtual fences.
She said the next step was probably for the State Growth Department and local councils to look into how and where they could install the devices.
