Maine news, sports, weather | Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Maine

July 14

GEORGE SMITH: Audubon website helps identify animal roadkill zones in Maine

Spotting a roadkilled grouse early one morning a few years ago while driving on Mount Vernon’s North Road near the elementary school, I hopped out and bagged it.

At least one teacher drove by while I was scooping up the bird, and when she got to school informed my first-grade teaching wife that she could expect grouse for dinner.

Too late. I ate it for lunch.

Just one reason I am fascinated by Maine Audubon’s new Wildlife Road Watch.

Road Watch is a web-based map and database where we can record our observations of roadside and roadkilled wildlife.

This is important information. As the website reports, “Information about where wildlife attempt to cross roads, what animals are involved, on what kinds of roads are collisions frequent, and other data can help inform policy, management and financial investment in reducing roadkill and habitat fragmentation.”

The reports will be used by Audubon scientists and others to learn where most wildlife road crossings occur and how many animals are killed on our roads. Then perhaps we can figure out how to reduce roadkills and increase our own safety by reducing motor vehicle collisions with animals.

It’s a killing field out there on Maine’s highways. A great deal of effort is spent trying to reduce collisions with deer and moose, the latter a dangerous road hazard that kills an average of three people every year.

But this concern goes both ways.

More Canadian lynx, an animal on the federal Endangered Species List, are killed on the woods roads in northern Maine than die from any other means.

Three thousand deer are reported killed in collisions with motor vehicles each year, and DOT officials say this is just the “tip of the iceberg” because most collisions are not reported.

This is not an inexpensive way to bag your deer. Repairs to motor vehicles damaged in collisions with deer cost millions of dollars each year. Per pound, it’s the highest-priced steaks you’ll ever buy.

So I’m excited by this new Audubon project. I keep a notebook handy in my vehicle and record each roadkill I encounter so it can be reported. I’ve seen everything from a coyote to a sparrow, with slow-moving porcupines topping the list, but also lots of raccoons.

Last week, I passed an unlucky beaver, smashed into the road, a veritable feast for the turkey vultures lingering nearby.

Amazingly, because they plague us, I’ve seen no woodchucks. I’m still applying the lead solution to keep them out of Linda’s garden.

Sadly, I’ve also seen a lot of cats. But then again, a friend told me that, upon checking on two eagle chicks in a coastal nest, he saw the heads of two cats in the nest. If tabby disappears tonight, it could be roadkill, or it could be your neighborhood bald eagle.

Snapping turtles lay their eggs in the sand alongside Blake Hill Road where I live. Some are dug up and consumed by coons and other animals. Those that hatch find themselves right on the tarred road, all dressed up with no place to go.

One rainy night years ago, Linda and I screeched to a halt just before the bridge over Hopkins Stream. Our headlights shone brightly on the water-topped road, and there must have been a hundred baby snappers sitting there.

They were identical in all ways to their parents, but no more than a couple of inches in length. Many had been crushed by automobiles.

We searched through the carnage and moved the live ones out of the road and to the edge of the stream. It was a godly feeling.

Today, I guess I’d have to go online and report a Mount Vernon massacre to my friends at Maine Audubon.

The online system is quick and easy to access and use.

Driving to church one morning in May, I noted a roadkilled porcupine on Route 41 next to my woodlot. The next day, for the first time, I went to the Audubon website (www.maineaudub on.org/wildliferoadwatch/), created my account, and recorded by observance. It was quick and easy.

After you create an account, you can log on anytime and record your observations of both live animals crossing the road and dead animals that didn’t make it.

It’s fun just to log on and see the observations of others. They even have a photo section for recording those unfortunate roadkilled wildlife species.

The photo section is particularly worth checking out. You might find supper!



George Smith is executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine. He lives in Mount Vernon and can be reached at george@samcef.org.