Abstract
Rapid development of road systems represents a serious threat to wildlife worldwide. However, general public are not aware of ecological impacts of roads, and large-scale surveys of road-kills have not been conducted in Taiwan. To increase public participation in scientific research of road ecology and understand the severity of road-kills, we launched a Facebook group “Reptile Road Mortality” as a citizen science platform in 2011. We encouraged public to record road-kills and upload the information including photo, date and location to the Facebook group, and help our institute to collect bodies of road-kill victims. Through the platform, we successfully increased public attention to road impacts on animal populations. Group members increased 9 times from 800 people in the first year, to ~7000 people within 3 years. In the past 3 years, 1,526 contributors upload 20,828 records of road kills. We find 191 records from thirteen species of diurnal raptors and nocturnal raptors. There are six diurnal raptors species were on the road-killed list, including Crested Serpent Eagle (Spilornis cheela hoya), Crested Goshawk (Accipiter trivirgatus), Besra (Accipiter virgatus fuscipectus), Black-winged Kite (Elanus caeruleus), Black Kite (Milvus migrans) and Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) ; road-kills of seven nocturnal raptors, including Collared Owlet (Glaucidium brodiei pardalotum), Mountain Scops Owl (Otus spilocephalus hambroecki), Oriental Scops Owl (Otus sunia japonicas), Elegant Scops Owl (Otus elegans botelensis), Collared Scops Owl (Otus lettia glabripes), Brown Hawk Owl (Ninox japonica totogo) and Brown Hawk Owl (Ninox japonica japonica). There were 22 individuals of Crested Goshawk been road-killed, and, there were 125 Collared Scops Owl and 28 Mountain Scops Owl been road-killed, respectively. We suggest that, with systematic methods and appropriate analyses, social media such as Facebook pose a great opportunity to incorporate citizen science in road ecology research.
Key words: road-kill, raptors
2015 The 5th symposium on ecology of raptors in Taiwan
*55244 Endemic Species Research Institute, Jiji, Nantou, Taiwan.
世界各地因為道路迅速的開發，進而威脅到野生動物生存空間，在台灣，野生動物遭受路殺而死亡的案例，尚未進行大規模的調查，因此，有許多民眾並不瞭解道路建設，可能會對生態環境帶來嚴重的衝擊。根據特有生物研究保育中心所成立的臉書社團「四處爬爬走-路殺社」猛禽路殺資料顯示，自2011年5月至2015年8月，日夜行性猛禽共記錄到2科13種191隻個體因路殺而死亡的案例。其中，日行性猛禽遭受路殺的物種分別為蛇鵰（Spilornis cheela hoya）、鳳頭蒼鷹（Accipiter trivirgatus）、台灣松雀鷹（Accipiter virgatus fuscipectus）、黑翅鳶（Elanus caeruleus）、黑鳶（Milvus migrans）、魚鷹（Pandion haliaetus）共6種；夜行性猛禽遭受路殺的有鵂鶹（Glaucidium brodiei pardalotum）、黃嘴角鴞（Otus spilocephalus hambroecki）、東方角鴞（Otus sunia japonicus）、優雅角鴞（Otus elegans botelensis）、領角鴞（Otus lettia glabripes）、褐鷹鴞（留鳥亞種）（Ninox japonica totogo）及褐鷹鴞（過境亞種）（Ninox japonica japonica）共7種。而日行性猛禽以鳳頭蒼鷹22筆資料為最多記錄，夜行性猛禽則以領角鴞125筆資料為最多，黃嘴角鴞以28筆為次多記錄。此191隻路殺個體皆由民眾所提供，未來，希望能藉由猛禽路殺資料，從中得知遭受路殺原因為何，藉此瞭解路殺對猛禽族群危害的嚴重性。
關鍵詞：路殺、猛禽
*55244南投縣集集鎮民生東路1號行政院農業委員會特有生物研究保育中心。
2015第五屆台灣猛禽生態研討會