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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 33(7)

Do wildlife warning reflectors elicit aversion in captive macropods?

Daniel Ramp A B and David B. Croft A
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- Author Affiliations

A School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.

B Corresponding author. Email: d.ramp@unsw.edu.au

Wildlife Research 33(7) 583-590 https://doi.org/10.1071/WR05115
Submitted: 14 December 2005  Accepted: 13 September 2006   Published: 15 November 2006

Abstract

A goal to reduce the frequency of animal–vehicle collisions is motivating extensive research on this topic world-wide. Over the last 30 years, one popular mechanism to warn wildlife of approaching vehicles has been the wildlife warning reflector, manufactured and distributed under the brands Swareflex (Austria) and Strieter-Lite (USA). These reflectors were designed to scare deer and other ungulates from roadways at night by reflecting light from the headlights of approaching vehicles into the eyes of animals on the road verge. Robust documentation of their effectiveness has been lacking, yet there has been a push in Australia to examine their efficacy with regard to medium to large macropodids. Field trials of the reflectors are problematic and difficult to design rigorously, so we chose to examine the behavioural response of two captive macropodid species (Macropus rufus and M. rufogriseus) to the reflectors on a simulated road in order to derive some indication as to their efficacy. The behavioural response to the reflectors was negligible for both species and not consistent with an aversive effect to deter road use or crossing. We conclude that they would be of little value in our efforts to reduce the frequency of collisions of kangaroos or wallabies with vehicles in Australia.


Acknowledgments

This research was conducted with Animal Ethics approval (03/57) and was conducted as part of the ‘Saving wildlife: saving people on our roads’ project sponsored by the Australian Research Council (LP0346925, APDI to DR), the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation, the NSW Wildlife Rescue and Information Service, the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority and Roe Koh & Associates Pty Ltd. Special thanks go to Jeff Vaughan and Jan Nedved for assistance with the trials. We are grateful to Strieter Corporation and Swareflex for providing the reflectors used in this trial. Matt Hall, Diane Dominique and Aline Finger assisted with data collection and video analysis. Our thanks go to Leonard Sielecki for providing research advice and to Gino D’Angelo and an anonymous reviewer for comments on the manuscript.


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