Roadkills awareness campaign
Many protected areas are crisscrossed by busy roads, that carry hundreds of vehicles a day. Road accidents have emerged as one of the threats facing the already endangered wildlife. KANS has taken up couple of initiatives at the Bandipur National Park and Rajiv Gandhi National Park, to reduce this risk.
Roads, railways and other infrastructure projects have emerged as one of the major threats to wildlife. Between 2003 and 2007, the Bandipur National Park in Karnataka saw the death of 89 mammals, 73 birds and 53 snakes on the National Highway. Similar incidents occur regularly in Forested areas across the country that have roads cutting through them. Apart from roadkills, the other threats are habitat fragmentation and changes in animal behaviour.
The Mysore-Ooty highway passes through Bandipur and Mudumalai Sanctuaries in Karnataka and Tamilnadu. Weekend traffic is particularly high on this highway and on an average 1000 vehicles commute on these roads over 24 hrs. Every weekend, KANS members along with volunteers, position themselves at the Kekkanahalla checkpost on either directions, and briefly stop every vehicle passing through to explain the rules of driving through a Sanctuary and distribute awareness pamphlets.
Rajiv Gandhi National Park, Karnataka
The 25 km. long district road between the Veeranahosahalli and Nagarhole checkposts in the Rajiv Gandhi (Nagarhole) National Park has 40 road humps to control the speed of the 300-odd vehicles that ply daily through the forest. Over the years, the paint has worn out and the road humps are barely visible. KANS undertook the task of re-painting these road humps in order to improve their visibility and help the vehicles to actually slow down.
Related posts:
- Safari Visitors Awareness campaign – Nagarhole
- Bandipur Roadkills Campaign – 13/14 June 2009
- Bandipur Roadkills campaign – Jan 2009
