| Many studies provide sobering statistics on the number of moose- and deer-vehicle collisions that occur annually on North American highways, and the resulting property damage, animal deaths, personal injuries, and human fatalities. Recent accidents involving moose in New Brunswick have again brought the issue to the forefront in the province.; This study was undertaken to identify those sections of various New Brunswick arterial highways with high levels of vehicle-ungulate collisions, and to statistically determine which landscape factors make these areas more susceptible to these collisions. The objective was to identify the conditions of the roadways, and their surrounding landscape, which lead to a higher probability of moose- and deer-vehicle accidents.; Analysis showed that the landscape features having the greatest significance were railways, cuts, transmission lines, trails, buildings, limited-use roads, wetlands, vegetation, other roadways, and solids depots (dumps), although the significance varied depending on the animal, route, and the radial buffer distances being considered. Identifying the influencing environmental and habitat variables could potentially be used by highway planners and design engineers to avoid problematic areas in future highway upgrades or new highway designs or, if avoidance is not possible, to plan for appropriate mitigative measures. |
