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Sara Marques et al. 2010. Impact of roads on ungulate species: a preliminary approach in Portugal
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The information contained in database was subjected of a basic statistical analysis as the
collisions’ percentage with wild boar, roe deer and roe deer, to understand which the ungulate’s
species are more affected by the vehicle accidents; collisions’ percentage in the different types
of roads, to evidence the importance of the selected landscape variables to make the area more
or less susceptible to these types of accidents; collisions’ percentage at different time of the day
and months of year (date), to understand the relation of road type to ungulate movements and
behaviour.
3. Results
According to our data, the majority of the ungulate vehicle-collisions with tractable information
occurred with wild boar (86%), followed by roe deer (9%) and lastly the red deer with 5% of the
cases (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Percentage of ungulate vehicle-collisions per species in central and northern Portugal.
Taking into account the road type (Figure 2) it is evident that the majority of ungulate vehiclecollisions
occurred at national roads (EN), with 131 cases among 186, which corresponds to
70,4% of the cases, followed by municipal roads (EM) (12,9%), high speed roads (A) (9,1%),
main road (IP) (5,4%) and complementary roads (IC) and forestry way (CF) with 2 accidents
each one (1,1%).
Figure 2: Ungulate vehicle-collisions in different road types (EN; EM; A; IP; IC; CF) in central and
northern Portugal
The distribution of ungulate vehicle-collisions throughout the months of the year showed that
the majority of accidents occurred in winter, particularly in the months of November (19,5%),
December (13,3%) and January (13,8%) and in summer its visible a peak in August (10,8)
(Figure 3).
Forest Landscapes and Global Change-New Frontiers in Management, Conservation and Restoration. Proceedings of the IUFRO Landscape Ecology
Working Group International Conference, September 21-27, 2010, Bragança, Portugal. J.C. Azevedo, M. Feliciano, J. Castro & M.A. Pinto (eds.)
2010, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal.