Verifying Species Identification of Citizen-based Roadkill Records by Local Government

Abstract

We evaluated the correctness of roadkill(RK) species identification by citizens and road maintenance personnel in 1,601 mammalian RK records collected by the city office of Tsukuba, Ibaraki. We compared citizen report descriptions and maintenance personnel confirmations (non-expert identification) with expert identification. Our results showed that correct RK species identification by road maintenance staff was made at a significantly higher degree than those by citizens, which improved the reliability of species description in the final record. On the other hand, none of rare or invasive species were correctly identified. The study showed that RK species records collected for road maintenance purposes are reliable to a certain extent, although such RK records alone may be insufficient for conservation purposes.