@article{ref1,
title="Elevated wildlife-vehicle collision rates during the COVID-19 pandemic",
journal="Scientific reports",
year="2021",
author="Abraham, Joel O. and Mumma, Matthew A.",
volume="11",
number="1",
pages="e20391-e20391",
abstract="Wildlife-vehicle collisions threaten both humans and wildlife, but we still lack information about the relationship between traffic volume and wildlife-vehicle collisions. The COVID-19 pandemic allowed us to investigate the effects of traffic volume on wildlife-vehicle collisions in the United States. We observed decreased traffic nationwide, particularly in densely populated states with low or high disease burdens. Despite reduced traffic, total collisions were unchanged; wildlife-vehicle collisions did decline at the start of the pandemic, but increased as the pandemic progressed, ultimately exceeding collisions in the previous year. As a result, nationwide collision rates were higher during the pandemic. We suggest that increased wildlife road use offsets the effects of decreased traffic volume on wildlife-vehicle collisions. Thus, decreased traffic volume will not always reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions.  Keywords: CoViD-19-Road-Traffic <p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="2045-2322",
doi="10.1038/s41598-021-99233-9",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-99233-9"
}