Roadside Flattened Fauna

ROADSIDE FLATTENED FAUNA
May 24 & May 26

Remember that peculiar song several years back, “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road, Stinking to High Heaven? I’m reminded of that song every time I come across the carcass of a skunk along the roadside.
I noticed another, near Mountain View last week, unceremoniously stretched out in a driveway where it had been catapulted after being struck. The carcass was not there when I returned from Belleville. It had been moved to a new resting place.
This column is about animals that, like the Wicked Witch of the East in the Wizard of Oz, are not just merely dead, but really most sincerely dead. It is about the feathered-covered patties and ironed-out specimens we see every day commonly referred to as road kills.
Thousands of animals get killed every year during errors in judgement as they wander into traffic. During my 45 years of driving, I have only decimated one animal with my vehicle, and that was a rabbit. I have always managed to avoid foolish raccoons and skunks. Even the deer that collided with my vehicle, which sent the animal spinning in the highway in a series of somersaults, got up and sprinted on its way across the field, while I continued to limp into town with over $2,000 worth of dents in the side of my vehicle. One source says, that Canada probably leads the world in roadkills, making us greater killers of wildlife than all of Canada’s sealers and trappers put together. Is there cause for concern? Probably not, as few animals ever make it to retirement anyway. The turtles that we see each year along the roadsides lay many dozen of eggs, but between being consumed by raccoons while still in the egg stage, and snatched by other eager predators during their march to open water, Nature dictates that only two of those 40 or so offspring, really need to survive to maintain the ecological balance. That’s the contract all animals have with Mother Nature.
How many of us stop to think about the processes which takes place with the carcass before it is reduced to a patch of hair and a grease mark on the asphalt? None of the remains of the estimated million and a half animals killed by automobiles each day goes to waste. Crows, turkey vultures and other scavengers feast on the carcass, they too sometimes becoming casualties as they feed oblivious to traffic barrelling down on them. Mice may visit later to chew on the bones for the calcium they contain. Any remaining hide might be consumed by smaller mammals and a multitude of insects, and finally, by fungi and other organisms. Songbirds would even utilize the fur as nesting material.
Among the first insects to visit roadside kills are the flesh flies, followed by blowflies, the fly maggots later having their turn at the remains. Ants, daddy longlegs, yellow jackets and wasps all display interest in the carcass. Later arrivals of the clean-up brigade might include beetles and other types of flies. When nothing but bones, dry skin and cartilage is left, more beetles will arrive, along with snails, centipedes and millipedes.
Turkey vultures are among our most efficient scavengers. While somewhat unattractive in appearance and totally disgusting in their table manners, their value as scavengers must be recognized. Imagine, if you will, the incredible stench resulting from over a million animals killed each day on our highways if scavengers such as turkey vultures were not around. And imagine our forests knee deep in rotting carcasses and excrement were it not for the natural processes at work?
One of the most interesting and unusual of the scavengers are the burying beetles. These industrious little insects will bury a carcass by removing the earth from beneath it. Once the carcass is buried, these grave diggers lay their eggs on it, the carcass serving as a larder for their larvae.
Certainly a discussion on decaying road kills is not a pleasant topic for a season in the year which is supposed to celebrate life, but it is a fact of life. Few people, I dare guess, stop to think about the valuable service performed by the birds, mammals, insects, fungi and bacteria in cleaning up roadside kills. Even large animals like moose are processed by the scavengers in as little as two years – bones, hide and all. Were it not for this natural clean-up brigade, town and county maintenance crews would be faced with staggering costs in highway clean-up. And we thought dead roadside animals simply evaporated into thin air over time!
There is concern though for the future of some species as the amount of automobile traffic increases. With the abundance of dead raccoons I see along the roadsides every year, I sometimes wonder how it manages to survive as a species at all. When the cement barriers were installed in the 401 median there was instant concern about animals no longer being able to navigate back and forth across 401. One person wryly commented that deer would have no problem leaping over the barrier; for the smaller animals, they would never make it as far as the barrier for it to be an issue!
Time will tell if the burgeoning highway traffic results in a marked decline of some species. For the time being, the wildlife cleanup brigade members are capitalizing on the windfall.