Diversity and Pattern of Wildlife Roadkills in Golestan National Park

The negative impacts of roads on biodiversity have been of great concern both at national and international levels. Very few studies, however, have examined the effects of road network on wildlife in Iran. The Tehran-Mashhad highway which passes through the Golestan National Park has particularly been of environmental concern in recent years. We studied the temporal pattern of wildlife collisions in Golestan National Park and determined the vulnerable vertebrate groups to traffic accidents. From March 2005 to June 2011, we recorded a total of 588 roadkills from 33 vertebrate species of 14 families and 10 orders. The mean number of roadkills was significantly higher in large herbivores, medium-sized carnivores and birds compared to other vertebrate groups. Six taxa including Wild boar (Sus scrofa), golden jackal (Canis aureus), owls (Strigidae), Corvids (Corvidae), common fox (Vulpes vulpes), and Indian porcupine (Hystrix indica) were more prone to collisions and accounted for 81% of all roadkills. Mean number of fatalities did not significantly differ between different months. No seasonality was observed in roadkills of high-fatality vertebrate groups. Seasonal changes in behaviour of these vertebrates may have been responsible for the minor differences in mean number of roadkills among species and seasons.