Movement of small mammals through a road-underpass is facilitated by a wildlife railing

Abstract

Wildlife underpasses in Australia are commonly fitted with timber railings to facilitate the passage of arboreal and scansorial mammals but there are no published accounts of railing use. We compared detections of such mammals on railings in two underpasses to detections on the ground in these and other underpasses. The brown antechinus (Antechinus stuartii) and the black rat (Rattus rattus) were detected on a closely monitored railing on 12-14% of nights over three years. These species were detected on the ground of underpasses on <1% of nights. Koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) and brushtail possums (Trichosurus spp.) were infrequently detected, koalas only on the ground and brushtail possums mostly on the ground. These observations suggest that road crossings by small scansorial mammals can be facilitated by timber railings.