A SURVEY OF ROAD-KILL ALONG THE BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY

The Blue Ridge Parkway is a federal parkway administered by the National Park Service (NPS), which stretches 469 miles (757 km) from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. The NPS has the primary responsibility of conserving all of the park's resources for the enjoyment of visitors. One of these resources is wildlife. This study is an attempt to better understand which species of wildlife are directly affected by vehicular traffic along a specific road segment as well as what might be the cause of the high road-kill rate. Driving surveys were conducted twice a day for 20 days from mid-October to mid-November along the Parkway between the Folk Art Center (mile marker 382.2) and the intersection of N.C. Hwy 191 (mile marker 393.6). Each survey consisted of locating and identifying those individuals that had died as a result of being hit by a motor vehicle. The first survey occurred between 1600–1700 hr and the second survey took place between 2000–2100 hr finding a significantly higher frequency of road-kill between 1700–2000 hr than expected by chance (Chi-square p < 0.025). The eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) was the species found most often followed by the opossum (Didelphis marsupialis). The results suggest that road-kill was occurring at an unusually high rate between 1700–2000 hr, which may be because of commuter traffic from nearby Asheville. Traffic counts at the four intersections in the study section were higher than at any other point along the Parkway. A number of different mitigation techniques were suggested to reduce the amount of road-kill in an effort to better conserve wildlife as a resource.