Effectiveness of Wildlife Warning Reflectors in Reducing Deer-Vehicle Collisions: A Behavioral Study

Various reflector systems have been in use for a number of years to reduce deer-vehicle collisions, but their effectiveness on a long-term basis is still in question. We examined habituation of deer to repeatedly occurring light reflections from WEGU reflectors by studying the behavioral responses o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	The Journal of wildlife management Vol. 62; no. 3; pp. 1094 - 1099
Main Authors:	Ujvári, Marianne, Baagøe, Hans J., Madsen, Aksel B.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Bethesda, MD The Wildlife Society 01-07-1998 Wildlife Society Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Subjects:	Accident prevention Animal behavior Animal, plant and microbial ecology Animals Applied ecology Automobiles Biological and medical sciences Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife Dama dama Deer Effectiveness Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology Habituation Light Luminous intensity Optical reflection Parks, reserves, wildlife conservation. Endangered species: population survey and restocking Reflectors Traffic accidents & safety Vehicles Warnings Wildlife Denmark Europe Device Collision Reflector Motor vehicle Habituation Man animal relation Vertebrata Mammalia Efficiency Artiodactyla Behavior Animal conservation Light reflection Ungulata Dama dama
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Summary:	Various reflector systems have been in use for a number of years to reduce deer-vehicle collisions, but their effectiveness on a long-term basis is still in question. We examined habituation of deer to repeatedly occurring light reflections from WEGU reflectors by studying the behavioral responses of fallow deer (Dama dama). Our experimental design eliminated factors normally associated with light reflections from reflectors (vehicle noise, light), and deer were exposed to light reflections at predetermined time intervals. The distribution of the behaviors flight, alarm, movement of head, and no reaction varied among nights. Despite this variability, however, fallow deer exhibited increasing indifference to reflections, which was explained by a habituation to the stimulus. Our results are expected to be valid for other species of deer and other types of reflectors. Habituation of deer and technical limitations of the reflectors, such as limited angle and low light intensity of the reflection, mean that reflectors are not reliable as a method to reduce the number of deer-vehicle accidents on a long-term basis.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23
ISSN:	0022-541X 1937-2817
DOI:	10.2307/3802562