NORTH-WESTERN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY 8 (2): 409-413 ©NwjZ, Oradea, Romania, 2012 Article No.: 121401 http://biozoojournals.3x.ro/nwjz/index.html IENE 2010 International Conference on Ecology and Transportation "Improving Connections in a Changing Environment" September 27 - October 1, Velence, Hungary A tool to prioritize high-risk road mortality locations for wetland-forest herpetofauna in southern Ontario, Canada Kari E. GUNSON 1, *, Dave IRELAND 2 and Fred SCHUELER 3 1. Corresponding author: Eco-Kare International, 644 Bethune Street, Peterborough, Ontario, K9H 4A3, Canada / email: kegunson@eco-kare.com 2. Royal Ontario Museum/Ontario Road Ecology Group, 100 Queen’s Park Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2C6, Canada / email: davei@rom.on.ca 3. Bishops Mills Natural History Centre/Ontario Road Ecology Group, 6 St Lawrence Street, Bishops Mills, R.R. #2, Oxford Station, Ontario, K0G 1T0, Canada / email: bckcdb@istar.ca * Corresponding author’s e-mail: kegunson@eco-kare.com Received: 18. September 2011 / Accepted: 18. February 2012 / Available online: 26. May 2012 / Printed: December 2012 Abstract. Roads are more frequently fragmenting natural habitats increasing the likelihood of collisions between wildlife and vehicles. The Canada Species at Risk Act (2002) lists species that are threatened with regional extinction, and roads have been identified as a significant threat for many of these wildlife species in Ontario, e.g. turtles. In response to negative road impacts on wildlife, we developed a GIS modeling tool that predicts high-risk road mortality locations for selected wetland-forest herpetofaunal species that are representative of the landscape. We obtained a habitat suitability index (sum of weighted habitat scores) within a 12.6 hectare buffer surrounding each 15 x 15 m pixel of road in the landscape. Validation of the final model with dead and alive on-road herpetofaunal data showed animals were more at risk of road mortality when roads bisected large areas of wetland-forest habitat. The tool has been effective to promote proactive mitigation planning within government transportation agencies at the municipal and provincial level. Future work will develop species-specific models that identify road mortality locations along roads that re-connect habitat from a local and metapopulation perspective. In addition, the models will be used to prioritize locations along roads for effective mitigation solutions, e.g. turtle crossing signs and wildlife crossing structures. Keywords: Ontario, herpetofauna, Geographic Information System tool, mitigation, prioritize, landscape. Introduction In southern Ontario the total length of major roads has increased fivefold between 1935 and 1995 (Fenech et al. 2005) and there is no point (exclud- ing large lakes and protected areas) that is more than 1.5 km from a road. Along with an increasing road network and associated traffic volumes, southern Ontario harbours the highest biodiver- sity of plants and animals in Canada. As more and more species become threatened by human activities they are added to the Species at Risk (SAR) list in Canada by the Committee of the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. A SAR is any naturally occurring plant or animal in danger of extinction or of disappearing from a re- gion. As of January 2007, there were 534 SAR in Canada and Ontario is home to 182 of these spe- cies, the highest percentage of species at risk among the provinces (Environment Canada 2007). Today, the negative impacts of roads are widely seen as a contributing factor leading to SAR des- ignation. For example, seven of Ontario’s eight turtle species are listed as SAR and roads have been identified as one of the most significant threats for five of these species (Seburn 2007). For motorists, the most obvious impact of roads on biodiversity is a direct collision with an animal crossing or moving along roads. Less obvi- ous, but significant nonetheless, are the effects of landscape fragmentation as roads bisect remaining patches of natural habitat (Trombulak & Frissell 2000). A fragmented landscape caused by roads has increasingly been a major concern for decreas- ing species richness, genetic diversity, and species abundance in Ontario and elsewhere (Fahrig et al. 1995, Findlay & Houlahan 1997, Vos & Chardon 1998, Eigenbrod et al. 2008). Studies that have evaluated the spatial distri- bution of road-kill along roads have demonstrated that they are not random occurrences but spatially clustered for large mammals and small-vertebrate fauna (Clevenger et al. 2003, Mountrakis & Gunson 2009). These spatially clustered hotspots