The Cobaticas-La Jordana Neighborhood Association, the population centers located in the Regional Park of Calblanque, Monte de las Cenizas and Peña del Águila, have just finished the report on wildlife abuses in the eastern sector of the protected space in 2022. And the conclusions are discouraging. Compared to 2021, the year in which the data was collected with the same methodology and itineraries, the number of animals run over by road traffic has increased by 280%, almost triple, from 20 animals to 56.
The data, shared in a joint meeting with the managers of the Regional Park, Andrés Muñoz and Rocío Huertas, and with Miguel Ángel Esteve, from the Department of Hydrology and Ecology of the UMU, aroused “concern” in all of them due to their upward trend, despite the measures established to try to reduce them, such as speed bumps and the limitation of the movement of private vehicles at certain times.
The reports will now be analyzed with scientific criteria by the UMU in order to “draw conclusions and proposals for action to try to solve this problem,” says José Benedicto, a neighbor and in charge of collecting the data, as well as to implement effective changes in park management, “for which we have the support and collaboration” of its managers.
The six species of snake
Among the 56 road kills registered in 2022 by voluntary residents – monitoring began in 2016 – the majority (37.5%) are chameleons (21 compared to 7 in 2021), followed by southern smooth snakes (7 compared to 1 ), bastard snakes (5 versus 3), natterjack toads (5 versus 0), long-tailed lizards (4 and 0 in 2021) and Baetic lizards (3 and none in 2021). Thus, 46 of the animals victims of the circulation of motor vehicles were reptiles (more than 82%), among which they also mention the cogulla snake (1), the viperine snake (1), the ladder snake (2) and the horseshoe snake (2). Added to them are three mammals – the common hedgehog (1), the field mouse (1) and the common rabbit (1) – and two birds – the blackbird and the southern warbler.
“The most worrying thing is the negligence of visitors, who do not respect speed regulations,” say the authors of the report
The data has been collected by volunteer residents on the road that connects Los Belones with La Jordana and Cobaticas and with the El Atochar parking lot (near the Larga and Negrete beaches) and the road that, from the highway, leads to the Visitor Center Cobaticas and the beaches of Calblanque, Arturo and Magre.
Proposals to improve
They explain that “the chameleon is the species most vulnerable to road traffic and speeding, due to its slow mobility and its ability to blend into the terrain.” And they point out that all the species of snakes present in the protected natural space have suffered abuses, among which the increase of the southern mullet stands out (from 1 to 7), included in the list of species protected by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the reduction of the cogulla (from 5 to 1), threatened by the fragmentation of its habitat and because it is here at the limit of its distribution.
However, for the data to be truly useful and provide solutions, the residents of the park ask that traffic and speed meters be installed to know the intensity of traffic and speed in order to determine the rate of accidents per km and elucidate if its seasonality is due to the variation in the volume of traffic or to the biology and ethology of the different species. Likewise, they request that the habitats around the road kill points of the species with the highest number of records be characterized and that the UMU Ecology Department, under the direction of Professor Esteve, be entrusted with a more rigorous study that includes the influence of seasonality, the type of pavement, the habitats and the distance between speed bumps, “as it already did with the data from the AA VV for the period 2018-2021,” Benedicto points out.
They also propose to involve drivers so that they drive slowly, develop awareness programs, apply sanctions, encourage access on foot, rethink access management and the location of parking lots and, above all, promote methods of access to the park that are more soft, with less carbon footprint. “Once again, we propose the use of tourist trains with tires, which have access for the disabled and a public address system so that the guide informs visitors about the natural values during the journey.” Since, as they point out and as in previous years, «the most worrying thing is the negligence of visitors, who do not respect speed regulations, which makes reducers and traffic signals ineffective. It is being very damaging that visitors consider the use of beaches as a priority, without caring about biodiversity and natural values. I think that the use of large buses favors this trend of going to the beaches of Calblanque”.
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