Killer Roads

[Sabyasachi Patra]

This road kill image is from Uttarakhand. This is a video grab from my C300 camera.

Me and Mrudul were driving towards Rudraprayag and found this on the road. These roads are narrow and still people drive fast. By the time we reached the spot, the blood had dried up and most likely this incident had happened early in the morning. What was its crime? It was coming from the right side from the river. Did it know that it would get killed by most likely a pilgrim vehicle? The vehicle would not have stopped thinking that Ohh it looks like a Cat.

[Mrudul Godbole]

People would have thought this was just a common cat that was killed . Unfortunate. Thanks for sharing.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

It is sad..but also sometimes one wonders how to avoid this, esp on the village roads or even a highway passing through the country side. of course it is not applicable if to those who feel it is only a cat, but most of us wouldn't want to hit anything on the road if we can. Just sharing an experience...In May this year suddenly there were some nonseasonal rains almost giving the impression that the monsoon was early and that night I had tough time on a road stretch of about 7 kms passing though a wetland on both sides.There were hundreds of frogs crossing the road. I was in a car and was sure to run over a few...waiting didn't help either as after almost 1 hr the numbers only seemed to increase, leaving the car was not an option as I was in no mans land when luckily the rain started coming down in sheets and for some reason the frogs took a break. so I presume i didn't kill any. On another day I wouldnt know what to do or who to blame ... me? the road? car?
TFS
Roopk

[Sabyasachi Patra]

This is in fact a major reason for ban on night driving. Most of the herpetofauna and smaller animals cross the roads in the night and no way can they avoid speeding vehicles. Running over one such mass movement of frogs or any species may significantly reduce their population. Earlier it was important to create roads that can reduce the distance as the speed of vehicles was low. Today one can make a smooth and wide road which can skirt the forest areas and still reduce the overall time of travel. Unfortunately, our planners are not considering such alternate alignments of roads which don't pass through forest areas.

Sometimes back a black panther was killed in a road accident. There are many cases of leopards being hit and killed by speeding vehicles. One of those may be the last remaining of their population in that area.

My prescription is: 1) don't maintain the roads passing through the forests 2) create alternate alignments to skirt the forest areas