Roadkill is costing Australians thousands. Could virtual fencing be the answer?
Lindy Butcher is up all throughout the night bottle-feeding some unexpected babies.
The ACT Wildlife volunteer is caring for two wombats — Midge and Claire, just weeks old — rescued when their mothers were fatally hit by cars.
Ms Butcher knows the cost of roadkill up close, having cared for thousands of injured animals over 30 years.
"They would have been fox or bird food within a couple of hours."
However, Ms Butcher isn't angry — she knows most collisions between vehicles and wildlife are accidents.
"I feel sorry for people who have hit a big animal with their car because usually they haven't done anything wrong," she said.
"The animal has leapt out in front of their car, scared the tripe out of them, damaged their car and then the poor animal has died or is injured. It's a problem."
It's an issue with a big price tag.
Every year, more than 7,000 insurance claims are made after collisions with kangaroos, with Huddle Insurance estimating damage from those crashes cost Australians more than $28 million in repairs and $6 million in excess payments.
Two hours from Canberra, Eurobodalla Shire Council (ESC) trialled a virtual fence along a strip of road north of Batemans Bay in 2023.
Green fence posts, distributed every 25 metres, form a virtual fence along the roadside, sensing approaching vehicles and emitting a light and beep.
It is designed to warn wildlife about oncoming traffic and make animals pause before they step out and become startled by the blinding headlights of an oncoming car.
The technology works best with vehicles travelling at up to 80 kilometres per hour.
ESC reported incidents down from five per week to just five in the first year.
Mayor Mat Hatcher said the fence cost $10,000 per kilometre to install, but he said it reduced insurance claims by drivers, council staff call outs and wildlife deaths.
"It's a great return on investment for the ratepayer," he said.
ESC has since installed virtual fences at two more locations in the shire and has allocated money in the annual budget to keep installing more fences.
"For areas with a lot of wildlife, especially late at night when the roads are dark, it's been fantastic for us," Cr Hatcher said.
Save Canberra's Kangaroos' Aisha Bottrill read about the success of the trial on the south coast and wants the fences installed in Canberra, where she often pulls over to tend to injured or dead kangaroos on the roadside.
She started a petition hoping for a virtual fence trial on the road she commutes along twice daily.
"Something needs to be done about it for the safety of the wildlife and for the safety of people who use that road."
She said drivers had become desensitised to signage urging them to slow down for wildlife.
"We need to put something in place that will deter animals from crossing the road if we can't deter drivers from slowing down in high-risk times," she said.
"We live in the bush capital and we're so lucky to share our homes and backyards with so much wildlife. It's devastating to see so many injured kangaroos and not see anything done about it."
Ms Butcher said 70 per cent of the incidents reported to the ACT Wildlife hotline were for collisions with birds, which would not be stopped by the fence.
She said attempts to reduce roadkill also needed to include planting more trees so animals could move along the canopy without needing to come to the ground.
But Ms Butcher would love to see the fences trialled in the ACT.
"If we could even just reduce the number of wombats, wallabies, kangaroos and possums hit by cars, that would be great," she said.
"It would be great to see something like that here.
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