LONDON FREE PRESS (Ontario) 29 March 11 Drivers slow down, reptile roadkill drops (Debora van Brenk)

Reptile roadkill is declining along the Long Point Causeway, considered by some one of the deadliest stretches of road in the world for animals.

Conservationists who have installed fences and posted warning signs say fewer animals of all kinds are being killed along the 3.6-kilometre causeway that leads to Lake Erie. Reptile deaths there have dropped 56% in the past three years, said Rick Levick, spokesperson for the Long Point Causeway Improvement Project Committee.

A tally of weekly roadkill numbers each of the past three summers has found road deaths of turtles and snakes had dropped to 113 in 2010, compared with 258 in 2008.

Many of those creatures were on Ontario species-at-risk lists -- including four turtle species that take years to mature and then need to traverse the road to get from wetland to higher ground to lay eggs.

"The real problem with the roadkill is that it kills off the reproductive-age females," Levick said.

About 4,000 metres of fences keeps wildlife from crossing the road, on which as many as 8,000 vehicles on a busy day travel to and from cottages, birdwatching junkets or the beach.

And the signs let drivers know to be cautious of wildlife in an area that's also home to a United Nations Biosphere Reserve.

A census in the 1990s showed more than 10,000 animals a year -- reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds included -- were killed on that road, One study even showed some people were hitting animals intentionally.

"One of my earliest memories of Long Point is seeing two big snapping turtles squashed on the road, and that was 50 years ago," Levick said.

Now, that's changed.

Levick has seen drivers stop to pick up small turtles on the road and give them safe passage to the other side or wait while frogs hop and snakes meander across the blacktop.

"They don't really pick up the snakes. They just sort of shoo them," Levick said.

The group receives funding in part from Environment Canada's Habitat Stewardship Program and from Ontario's Species at Risk Stewardship Fund.

This year, the group has plans to install three eco-passages, culverts designed specifically to allow critters to cross under the road. A total of 11 eco passages are planned.

The passages will help funnel reptiles safely to nesting grounds and drier habitats.

And while it could also funnel their natural predators the same way, mortality won't be nearly as high as from human drivers, Levick noted. "We know that if you run over a turtle with an SUV, that's it."

The Causeway bisects the Big Creek National Wildlife Area and Long Point Bay.

Built in 1926-1927 across wetlands to help provide access to the Lake Erie beach, it likely would never have been built under today's regulations that restrict development of ecologically sensitive areas.
Drivers slow down, reptile roadkill drops

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• ON Press: Reptile roadkill drops - W von Papineäu, Wed Mar 30 07:46:46 2011