To be upset by the amount of road kill on country roads?

[superstarheartbreaker]

I am a country girl. Today we drove to Bristol and the sat in front mowed down a beautiful buzzard ( not a clean kill). We were all v. Upset.
Not to mention about 5 squashed badgers and 3 foxes.

I'm not suggesting we start building hedgehog bypasses but why so much road kill this month?

London, sorry I can't fully make sense of your first paragraph. Badgers get shot and left by the road. It happens because it is believed they spread (bovine) tb (at least that's the most recent excuse). If it was just them being brave there wouldn't be a spike at certain times of year. I don't know if culling makes it worse as I haven't looked into the evidence myself but it wouldn't surprise me. Either way unlicensed culling is pretty disgusting but that's just my opinion.

Pipbin....I think most people would just bury the badger where they shot it and not bother carrying it to a road and artfully arranging it to look like road kill

Hmmmm take a spade with you, go to all the effort of digging a hole and burying an animal that you believe to be diseased on your land, or, hoy it out of the window of your landy?

I'm going to rephrase what I have said. If you look at the corpse of some of the badgers that are on the side of the road you will find that they have a wound more consistent with a shotgun than a car.

And yes, doing that is illegal and not actually making any difference to the situation. But when did legality and facts get in the way of anyone doing anything.

Because shooting foxes isn't illegal. Shooting badgers is.

This family's chilling experience is a reminder that swerving/braking to avoid wildlife can have catastrophic consequences:

Kathryn Clarke

Funnily enough id never seen a badger until a few months ago, it was strolling around the green outside a pub.

I get sad when I see the little bunnies, especially when they're tiny. And dead foxes make me sad too.

Badgers always blow up like square balloons after they've been beside the road for a while in summer...

Squirrels, my car is splattered with squirrel blood - gross

The bunnies usually have mixy. Especially if it's daytime. So better a quick death under the wheels of a car

Sadly, badgers, foxes,rabbits and squirrels are a common site on the roads near my house. It's rare not to see rabbits and squirrels daily and foxes and badgers once a month or so ??

I've seen an increase in badgers about on the roads recently, I can go a few weeks without seeing any and then loads for a while.
Doing a lot of night driving means I 'interact' with a lot of wildlife on the roads. I find owls particularly scary as they swoop down in front illuminated by the lights into a ghostly shape.

I agree with you.

I think it is the Nertherlands which has bridges covered in grass over busy roads, to reduce road kill.

Saw a road kill wallaby a few weeks ago - bizarre!

Recently went to a hedgehog hospital and we got told road kill is good as it means there are good numbers of the species in the area.

You don't see squashed hedgehogs so much these days and it is worrying.

You will see an increase in badgers at this time of year as the young begin to be independent. Therefore there are more of them out and about. It seems to be the smaller ones that are run over most often round here,maybe older ones have learned a little road sense. We followed one the other night until it could safely get off the road.

No Hakluyt! Really, they'd have myxomatosis? Sadface.

Now I have the Watership Down theme running through my head.

I saw a badger at the side of the road yesterday, was v strangely placed and not a(n obvious) mark on it. Clearly dead as lying on back. Found that upsetting, I think because it was so big.

Have also seen a stag that had been killed on a v busy road. Absolutely massive, very sad sight.

There is a lot of illegal badger baiting in Bristol and the corpses are dumped by the side of the road to make it look like road kill. There were a couple of arrest in 2012 but it was just the tip of the iceberg here .

I don't know much about roadkill because I live in the city. I do sometimes drive on country roads though.

I've got to ask, I have a small old car, a vauxhall corsa, if I was to hit an animal what would happen? I understand I shouldn't swerve but if I was to hit a fox or a badger would it cause a crash? as in, would it feel like a big impact? could I be hurt and my car damaged?

apologies for sounding so clueless.

What always puzzles me, is why do badger corpses hang about so long?

Nothing seems to eat them.

The crows and buzzards make quick work of foxes, rabbits and pheasants, but badgers hang about for ages.

elephant Thicker, denser coat, and floppy skin. Badgers are ersoid (bear family?) so a much tougher "meal" to get teeth into than a bunny or pheasant!

As for little bunnies... It's mixomatosis season now (not that it really went away over the last mild winter).

If I was a cute bunny and had a choice between a swift road death and lingering mixomatosis misery, I know which I'd opt for...

Oh, I come late to the mixo point.

I've killed a lot of birds and animals, I'm not going to endanger my life and my daughters life for a small animal. I will swerve for anything bigger than a fox though as hitting it could cause an accident anyway

A police officer friend told me that "run over" badgers in our rural area, often have gunshot wounds on them. Maybe there will shortly be a new TV series, CSI Badger...