At the end of 2012 there were 34.5 million vehicles licensed for use on the roads in Great Britain (DVLA). The number of animals killed on the roads in the United States is estimated at a million per day. About 350,000 to 27 million birds are estimated to be killed on European roads each year. In the UK we currently do not know what the impact of roads are on our wildlife. We aim to estimate that impact.
What is Project Splatter?
Project Splatter is a research effort to quantify and map wildlife roadkill across the UK. As of 2018 we have received over 50,000 individual roadkill records!
What are Project Splatter’s aims?
1. Collate data on UK wildlife roadkill reported by the public using social media
2. Estimate the impact of roads on UK wildlife
3. Determine which species are most observed as roadkill
4. Raise awareness of this conservation issue
5. Ultimately reduce the impact of roads on our UK wildlife
How does Project Splatter work?
Project splatter collates data member of the public send to us on the location of UK wildlife roadkill – birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles. This research is run by members of the public – termed citizen scientists. Members of the public see wildlife roadkill and report to use where, when and what, giving as accurate a location as possible.
At Cardiff University we turn your sighting into a grid reference and then use GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to map where the roadkill is across the UK, which we then report back to our citizen scientists on Twitter and Facebook and on the Maps page on this site.
Hi i would like to contribute to your project but i do not want to use twitter or facebook is there another way i can send you my data from roads in central Kent
Hi Anthony
There is no need for a Twitter or Facebook account. You can report your data to us here using our online form: https://projectsplatter.wordpress.com/report-some-data-to-project-splatter/
Many thanks for joining us and submitting data.
Team Splatter
Hi, I’m happy to participate in your project. I will be covering road kill sightings on Vashon Island, Washington. I also don’t have facebook or twitter, I will report via the website, thank you.
Hi Clyde. Many thanks, but we are UK based only.
Brilliant idea, I’ll publicise it on my rescue pages.
Thanks Gill.
I saw this site on Hedgehog bottom page, sadly two reports in 2 days sent via the website. I am also not a Facebook user, however can you set your Facebook page so that anyone can read it, as I would like to read the page and the weekly reports, if you do this, anyone without an account has more access to the information. Thanks Michelle
Hi Michelle. Thanks for spreading the word. Our Facebook page is public so you should be able to read our weekly reports.
Added to the Gay Birders Club FB page. I’m also an HGV driver on a regular route, so can give running commentary on that route, on a weekly basis.
Wonderful. Thanks Kaz. HGV drivers are a target group for us 🙂
Are you still collecting data?
Hi Sue, yes we are still collecting data! 🙂
I have been recording “road kill”, along with most of my other plant and animal records, via Livingrecord.net. Do you get data feeds from this? If not do your records get to County Recorders, Mammal Society, etc. Presumably recording on more than one site risks duplicating records and distorting any interpretation there off….
Hi Mike,
We do not currently get data from livingrecord, no.
We try to data-share as much as possible, but as you said, it can be difficult!