A deer watches passing cars at the edge of an Israeli road
A deer watches passing cars at the edge of an Israeli road
A deer watches passing cars at the edge of an Israeli road
Road number 6 Photo Dov Greenblat
A major Israeli roadway fragments the natural habitats of the local wildlife population

As part of UN World Wildlife Day (Friday, March 3), the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) and Waze launched a new venture aimed at reducing the number of wild animals that are run over on Israel’s roads annually, a statistic that has climbed into the thousands in recent years.

The new SPNI campaign calls on Israeli drivers to use Waze, the popular community-based traffic and navigation app, to report sightings of wild animals that were run over in open spaces and outside urban areas. The reports will be used to map the roads that are most dangerous to wild animals and provide the data required for creating safe passages for wildlife, preventing further damage and reducing the number of animals killed.

“Israel’s transportation infrastructure continues to expand rapidly, providing thousands of kilometers of roads that allow humans to travel conveniently from place to place, but these same roads are putting our wildlife in grave danger,” said Shmulik Yedvab, director of SPNI’s Mammals Center. “For gazelles, porcupines, badgers, turtles, hyenas, otters, and many other species, crossing the road often results in death. Additionally, fragmented habitats disconnect animal populations from one another, causing demographic and genetic problems to many species, impairing their long-term survival.”

The increasing awareness regarding the difficulty and risks that roads pose to wild animals led planners to build special passages for animals when constructing new roads or expanding and upgrading old roads, but there are still no solutions on dozens of existing roads across the country, making SPNI’s new campaign with Waze essential.

SPNI and Waze soft-launched the program in November 2016 and have been testing it ever since. Over the last four months, Waze users have embraced the app’s new function, with hundreds of reports streaming in monthly. In January alone, the Waze community of drivers logged 1,416 roadkill reports.

The public can ensure the success of this important campaign by being vigilant about reporting roadkill (but not while at the wheel). After clicking the circular orange report icon within the Waze app, users should select the yellow triangular hazard symbol, followed by “On road” and “Roadkill.” Using the accumulated data, SPNI experts will create a Wildlife Red Roads Atlas and try to determine which animal species are run over most and why, and what can be done to reduce the number of animal deaths and human injuries.

The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI), www.natureisrael.org, is the oldest and largest environmental nonprofit organization in Israel, and represented in the United States by Nature Israel. Since 1953, SPNI has dedicated itself to protecting and preserving Israel’s natural resources, environment, and unique landscape through education, activism, and advancing the love of nature. SPNI works tirelessly with policymakers and young people, across the country and in all sectors, to create a sustainable future for Israel, protecting and harnessing Israel’s natural resources for current and future generations.

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