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Impact Of Vehicular Traffic On Herpetofaunal Mortality In A Savannah Forest, Eastern Sri Lanka, Sujan Henkanaththegedara, Suranjan Karunarathna, A. A. Thasun Amarasinghe
Impact Of Vehicular Traffic On Herpetofaunal Mortality In A Savannah Forest, Eastern Sri Lanka, Sujan Henkanaththegedara, Suranjan Karunarathna, A. A. Thasun Amarasinghe
Sujan Henkanaththegedara
Mortality of wildlife due to vehicular traffic is among the direct impacts when natural habitats are
dissected with roads. This study presents the herpetofaunal mortality on a 3km stretch of a highway
crossing Nilgala Forest Area (NFA), a savanna dominated forest in Nilgala, eastern Sri Lanka. A total
of 72 species of herpetofauna including 53 reptiles and 19 amphibians were recorded as road kills of
which 19 species (26.3%) are endemic to Sri Lanka and 22 species (30.5%) are threatened nationally.
A total of 552 road killed individuals (23.6% of tetrapod reptiles, 40.2% of serpentoid reptiles and
36.2% amphibians) were …