Cars killed fewer animals in 3 states during COVID-19 shutdowns, roadkill study shows

Fewer wild animals died on roadways when stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic kept people at home, a new study shows.

The University of California, Davis study looked at data from California, Idaho and Maine and found that roadkill accidents declined by 21% to 56% between early March to mid-April, the period many stay-at-home orders were in effect.

If the trend continues, thousands of animals would be saved, including 50 fewer mountain lion deaths per year in California, UC Davis experts said.

“There is a statistically significant decline in wildlife deaths on highways in all three states following reductions in traffic this spring,” report author Fraser Shilling, director of the UC Davis Road Ecology Center, said in a news release “This has not been the case for any of the previous five years for these three states. If anything, there is usually an increase in spring.”

In California, the number of wild animals that were killed in car accidents is typically about 8.4 animals per day, UC Davis experts said. During the stay-at-home order, that number fell by 21%, to 6..6 kills per day.

Fewer threatened mountain lions were also killed during this time. The number dropped by 56% in the 10 weeks before stay-at-home orders to the 10 weeks after, according to UC Davis.

“The reduction in numbers of wildlife killed is surprising, and is a silver lining for both wildlife and people at this difficult time,” Winston Vickers, who directs the California Mountain Lion Project, said in the news release. “For Southern California mountain lions, even one lion making it across a road instead of being killed can be very significant for populations like the ones in the Santa Monica or Santa Ana mountain ranges.”

Idaho and Maine also saw significant decreases in animals killed.

Almost nine large wild animals are typically killed daily in Idaho, but after the state’s stay-at-home order was lifted the number fell 38%.

In Maine, the number decreased by half, according to the study.

“Given the five- to 10-fold under-reporting of large animals involved in collisions with vehicles and the lack of systematic reporting of smaller animals killed on roads, the positive impacts we report are likely to be just the tip of the iceberg of reduced deaths of wildlife on U.S. roads and highways,” Shilling wrote in the report.