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A Review of Roadkill Rescue: Who Cares for the Mental, Physical And A review of roadkill rescue: who cares for the mental, physical and financial welfare of Australian wildlife carers? Authors: Bruce Englefield, Melissa Starling, and Paul McGreevy Source: Wildlife Research, 45(2) : 103-118 Published By: CSIRO Publishing URL: https://doi.org/10.1071/WR17099 BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses. Your use of this PDF, the BioOne Complete website, and all posted and associated content indicates your acceptance of BioOne’s Terms of Use, available at www.bioone.org/terms-of-use. Usage of BioOne Complete content is strictly limited to personal, educational, and non-commercial use. Commercial inquiries or rights and permissions requests should be directed to the individual publisher as copyright holder. BioOne sees sustainable scholarly publishing as an inherently collaborative enterprise connecting authors, nonprofit publishers, academic institutions, research libraries, and research funders in the common goal of maximizing access to critical research. Downloaded From: https://bioone.org/journals/Wildlife-Research on 1/31/2019 Terms of Use: https://bioone.org/terms-of-use Access provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign CSIRO PUBLISHING Wildlife Research, 2018, 45, 103–118 Review https://doi.org/10.1071/WR17099 A review of roadkill rescue: who cares for the mental, physical and financial welfare of Australian wildlife carers? Bruce Englefield A,B, Melissa Starling A and Paul McGreevy A AFaculty of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. BCorresponding author. Email: [email protected] Abstract. The non-human animal deaths and injuries that result from collisions with motor vehicles are known colloquially as roadkill, and often lead to individuals from various taxa being orphaned. The complexities of multiple spatial and temporal variables in the available data on Australian roadkill and the scale of orphaning and injury make statistical analysis difficult. However, data that offer proxy measures of the roadkill problem suggest a conservative estimate of 4 million Australian mammalian roadkill per year. Also, Australian native mammals are mainly marsupial, so female casualties can have surviving young in their pouches, producing an estimated 560 000 orphans per year. A conservative estimate is that up to 50 000 of these are rescued, rehabilitated and released by volunteer wildlife carers. These roadkill-associated orphans are in addition to those produced by other anthropogenic and natural events and the injured adult animals in the care of volunteers. In accepting total responsibility for rescued animals, wildlife carers face many demands. Their knowledge base can require days of initial instruction with the need for continual updates, and their physical abilities and personal health can be tested by sleepless nights, demanding manual tasks and zoonoses. This review article explores the impact of this commitment and conservatively estimates carers’ financial input to raise one joey at approximately $2000 a year, and their time input at 1000 h, equating to $31 000 per year, applying a dollar value of $31 per hour. It categorises relevant types of grief associated with hand-rearing orphans and rehabilitating injured animals, and suggests that wildlife carers most likely experience many types of grief but are also susceptible to burn-out through compassion fatigue. A perceived lack of understanding, empathy and appreciation for their work by government can add to the stressors they face. Volunteering is declining in Australia at 1% per year, social capital is eroding and the human population is aging, while the number of injured and orphaned animals is increasing. Wildlife carers are a strategic national asset, and they need to be acknowledged and supported if their health and the public service they provide is not to be compromised. Additional keywords: carer burnout, carer stressors, orphaned wildlife, roadkill numbers, wildlife carer. Received 13 July 2017, accepted 21 February 2018, published online 4 May 2018 Introduction the result of disease, habitat destruction or anthropogenic events. The advent of motorised transport has not only altered Examples are the endangered Tasmanian devil (Sarcopholus environments but also presents a unique primary threat to harrisii) (Jones 2000; Hobday and Minstrell 2008), endangered wildlife. Human dependence on vehicular transport has had koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus)(Lunney2013; McAlpine et al. considerable influence on faunal populations across the world 2015) and threatened wombats (Vombatus ursinus) (Roger et al. (Trombulak and Frissell 2000; Davenport and Davenport 2006; 2007). Coffin 2007). For example, in Europe, roadkill is the main cause Dead and injured animals are constantly found along of the decline of the critically endangered European mink Australian roads. The density of roadkill can reach as high as (Mustela lutreola) (Palazón et al. 2012). Cars are among the one dead animal every 3 km per day. As disturbing as this biggest threats to the highly endangered Florida panther (Puma number is, the survey from which this statistic is drawn concolor coryi), with 10–15 panthers killed by vehicles each year (Hobday and Minstrell 2008) included only those seen dead (Fergus 1991; Waymer 2014) and, from the International Union on the road or verge from a vehicle and not in the adjacent for Conservation of Nature Red List, in less than a year, one vegetation. There may be many physical, environmental and tiger (Panthera tigris) and two leopards (Panthera pardus) were cognitive factors influencing the behaviour of both animals killed by speeding vehicles on the state highway at Sariska Tiger and human drivers involved in such incidents, and these Reserve, Alwar, Rajasthan India (Baskaran and Boominathan contribute to the fundamental issue of drivers and wildlife 2010). In Australia, roadkill can be a tipping point and represent being unable to adequately predict an imminent collision and a threshold beyond which there are serious threats to species as act to avoid it. These lethal interactions involve most taxa and Journal compilation Ó CSIRO 2018 www.publish.csiro.au/journals/wr Downloaded From: https://bioone.org/journals/Wildlife-Research on 1/31/2019 Terms of Use: https://bioone.org/terms-of-use Access provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 104 Wildlife Research B. Englefield et al. produce what has become known as roadkill. Non-lethal policy on orphaned wildlife contends that only where interactions often injure animals and may lead to a slow death rehabilitation and release is unlikely to be successful, should unless victims can be rescued or euthanased. Managing the the animal be humanely euthanased (RSPCA Australia 2008). rescue and rehabilitation of animals injured by vehicles, as It is also questionable whether veterinarians, registered with well as by other anthropogenic events, is a huge undertaking. the Australian Veterinary Association (AVA), could undertake In the United States, members of the National Wildlife euthanasia of a viable, healthy joey or injured animal that Rehabilitators Association (NWRA) treat hundreds of thousands could be rehabilitated, without breaching the AVA’s code of of wildlife animals annually and more than 75% of the animals professional conduct (Australian Veterinary Association 2018: cared for have been directly affected in some manner by human p.1, line 1) which states ‘The community and your clients activities (NWRA 2017). In the United Kingdom, data from are entitled to expect that you will always consider the health, 2013 indicate that the Royal Society for the Prevention of welfare and respectful treatment of the animal’. Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) UK, treated more than 15 000 If non-intervention and euthanasia are discounted, then sick, injured or orphaned wildlife animals (RSPCA 2017), rescue-and-rehabilitation is the remaining option. The current while in Australia, 25 568 native wildlife animals were presented Australian environmental, ethical and legal frameworks for these to the RSPCA Australia from July 2015 to June 2016 (RSPCA orphaned animals involve their being hand-reared by volunteer Australia 2016). wildlife carers, treated as wild animals and eventually returned Generally, when pregnant or nursing females are killed by to the wild, or held in captivity in perpetuity. This can be seen as road traffic or by other anthropogenic means (including cat and a public service, as the financial cost for these frameworks is dog attack, gunshot, habitat challenges and deliberate acts of borne largely by the wildlife carers themselves. cruelty), their offspring die with them, either by fatal injury at There are no national data on roadkill numbers, orphaned the time, or subsequent starvation in the nearby environment or injured animals, the number of registered and unregistered or maternal den. However, in Australia and parts of South wildlife carers, the period wildlife carers spend as carers, the America, deaths of lactating females present a unique problem. rate of recruitment and resignations of wildlife carers; nor is Australia has 357 indigenous mammal species, of which 159 there any monitoring of the survival rate and welfare of animals are marsupials (Van Dyck and Strahan 2008; Chapman 2009). that are released. The national data collected by
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