To reduce road kill, ban night traffic in Kudremukh, says BK Mukherjee

Bengaluru: After closely monitoring animal deaths on the road for nearly a month in a single division of Kudremukh National Park, Accountant General (Economic & Revenue Sector Audit) B. K. Mukherjee on Wednesday stressed the need for a night ban on traffic inside the protected forest area.

Speaking to reporters after releasing the performance report on administration of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in Karnataka at his office here, Mr Mukherjee said, “I know it is not feasible to totally ban traffic in protected forest areas but the government can explore other means to protect animals and endangered species. There is no harm in building an underpass and overpass for wildlife in sensitive places after identifying animal paths in protected areas.”

According to him, the intense monitoring was done in three Protected Areas- Kudremukh National Park, Mookambika Wildlife Sanctuary and Someshwara Wildlife Sanctuary, to monitor road deaths on National Highway 169, State Highway 66 in Kudremukh National Park and Kollur-Kattinahole road in Mookambika Wildlife Sanctuary between June 15, 2016 and July 31, 2016.

“During this short monitoring period, we found an astonishing 1,338 road deaths, of which 1092 deaths happened during nights with the major deaths being that of frogs and snakes. The Western Ghats is rich in biodiversity and many of these species does not figure in the records at all. I feel deeply saddened that except for monitoring of tiger and elephants, the forest department does not have data of what we have already lost or are going to lose,” he said.

He insisted that the monitoring of roads should become an important tool to enable protected area managers to identify vulnerable points and take appropriate steps to avoid road deaths.