Are protected areas truly protected? The impact of road traffic on vertebrate fauna

Published source details Garriga N., Santos X., Montori A., Richter-Boix À., Franch M. & Llorente G.A. (2012) Are protected areas truly protected? The impact of road traffic on vertebrate fauna. Biodiversity and Conservation, 21, 2761-2774.
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This study is summarised as evidence for the following.

	Action	Category
	Protect habitat: All reptiles (excluding sea turtles) Action Link

Protect habitat: All reptiles (excluding sea turtles)

A replicated, site comparison study in 2002 in four regions of Catalonia, Spain (Garriga et al. 2012) found that the roads in areas with high protection were more likely to have reptile roadkill than in areas with low or no protection. Results were presented as statistical model outputs (see original paper for details). In total, 127 reptiles were collected in spring and 118 reptiles were collected in autumn, the majority of which were Montpellier snakes Malpolon monspessulanus. Roads were surveyed for roadkill in 2002 fortnightly by car in spring (3 times between 14 April and 20 May) and autumn (3 times between 10 October and 15 November) along a randomly selected 20 km stretch of secondary road in each of 41 counties (246 surveys over 4,900 km). The protection status of the area around the road was categorised as high (Natural Park or National Park: 5 roads), low (areas of natural interest: 7 roads) or not protected (29 roads).

(Summarised by: Maggie Watson)