Garry Stannus
THERE is a certain driving culture out there. This bird was in the way. No, I didn’t hit it, I was overtaken by the one who did. I didn’t arrange the poor thing in the way you see it. The ute went past me, in a hurry. It was a deserted road between Cressy and Liffey. By the time I got there it was lying just as you see it.
I had been out to pick up the remains of a Wedge-tailed Eagle. Its ribs along one side were all stoved in, I imagine from the force of having been struck by a vehicle at 100kph. I ended up with an extra passenger.
Our Sulphur-crested Cockatoo’s feathers were exquisitely silk-smooth and his body had the warmth of life when I began to pick him up. [The colour of the eyes suggested the bird was male] I thought he was dead and I began gently to lift him, to move him from the road. Was that a movement that I felt, a return to consciousness or a final shudder from him? Could he wake and bite my finger in his pain? No, I have the feeling that he died then, at my first touch. I might be wrong, I’ll never know.
Years ago, driving boys home from footy practice, I swerved to dodge a potaroo. A lad in the back seat said ‘Aw don’t worry about them, we run over them all the time’. Others have mentioned targetting ‘vermin’ along the road. Once going for a Saturday paper in Westbury, I counted sixteen dead possums along one particular stretch of road. I couldn’t believe it. I’d never seen that many before and I wondered if someone had dumped them – another one of those thing that you’ll never find an answer for.
In Liffey itself, two residents incurred the wrath of locals for daring to criticise faunaphobic driving habits. In a climate of hostility, they left. However, in their wake, one good person got the council to erect an advisory road sign, letting drivers know that wombats crossed at that point. The macabre response was to run down another one and place its body up against the sign. When this joke was exhausted, then the sign was pulled out of the ground.
It is estimated that more than 113,000 animals die on Tasmanian roads each year. The solution according to Roadkill researcher Doctor Alistair Hobday is to force drivers to slow down, particularly in high risk areas. My suggestion would be to begin with a 85kph speed limit from dusk to dawn – statewide.
PS Did you see how Minister Garrett approved Part C of the Pulp Mill EIMP? Part C contains condition 26 and in it the Chief Scientist required: “Establishment of baseline surveys to assess risks associated with road kill of listed terrestrial species”. In spite of Gunns failure to conduct these surveys as required, Minister Garrett approved the module anyway.
