Put brakes on road kill

Our primary concern is the cost of the repair to the vehicle, concern for the animal well down the scale. Once, years ago, I left my cocoon after hitting a kangaroo on the way to Lightning Ridge to kill the spinning roo with a hammer blow to the head, and it's not something I did easily or happily.

But my suffering, our suffering in terms of confrontation or cost, should be secondary. The suffering we inflict on animals that come to be what we dismiss as roadkill is beyond imagining or assessment, unnecessary death on a scale that should be shocking.

Two years ago as I drove to and beyond Walgett on my way to north Queensland I saw a dead animal by the road every 200 metres, most of them kangaroos, and on a drive through Emerald and Charters Towers a few months ago I saw roadkill sometimes as dense as every few hundred metres. In just a few days I saw hundreds of recently killed kangaroos and wallabies, and I've seen more dead than alive.

In southern NSW and Victoria early last year there were more swelling wombats than kangaroos by the road, and in Tasmania, I was amazed by the number of Tasmanian devils squashed dead.

Roadkill foxes are common in parts, and I see emus, echidnas, kites and eagles, goannas, pigs, cows. I have seen a dead platypus, one or two koalas on each trip, and on a secondary road on the NSW north coast I have seen so many flattened tortoises that the road was slippery.

In hundreds of thousands of kilometres of country driving I've hit only one wild animal, the aforementioned kangaroo, and that is not because of good driving or slow speed. I suppose it's because I seldom drive on non-urban roads at night, because I stop driving before kangaroo o'clock, and because I don't want to damage my vehicle or kill or injure an animal.

That applies to most drivers of non-commercial vehicles, but something is killing the animals that line our roadsides.

I believe it is trucks, ploughing through the night, unstoppable and with low risk of damage. When I was camped overnight in a highway rest area in western Queensland last year a passing B-double or road train hit what must have been a big animal, a huge bang and a shudder we could hear move along the length of the vehicle. The truck didn't stop, it didn't need to. Surely we can do something to reduce the slaughter and suffering. Yes, we have floppy-top fencing, tunnels and high mesh bridges on our coastal highways, but these help protect such a small proportion of wildlife that it seems they're there to protect the vehicles and sensitivities of coastal city folk.

We need something that can work across Australia. I've tried the plastic roo whistles on the front bumper and while I didn't hit any roos when I had them I didn't hit any for 20 years without them. 

The shoulder of many country roads is mown these days, at significant expense to the local or state government, and while the better vision this gives drivers must reduce the roadkill I doubt that the better vision reduces the truck roadkill. A truck driver will be reluctant to slow his rig for kangaroos.

We need a roadside deterrent. What works for some animals may not work for others, and given the scale of the slaughter I'd say the priority is the kangaroo. Kangaroos are attracted to the roadside in dry times for the grass that is greener by the road or simply to cross the road, they're hit and killed and the carcass attracts scavengers, which are often killed themselves.

The solution needs to be achievable, and kangaroo-proof fencing for our country roads is probably not. Solar-powered, glow-in-the-dark electric fencing could be viable if kangaroos couldn't jump so well. A dingo-scented repellant spray? An artificial burning-hot chilli spray? If road authorities can mow the roadside they can spray and it may be that there is a scent or chemical that repels kangaroos. 

There is for you and me, and I imagine for other animals, a sound of a certain frequency that we find painful, and solar-powered ultrasonic sirens tuned to kangaroos' painful spot would surely do the trick. They siren could be directed in certain directions and installed along the road, and trucks could be required to mount one behind the bullbar. I'd want one. 

Australia may well have more roadkill than any other country and it is time we put more research money into finding a solution that works beyond the showcase coastal highways.