MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire should cut speed limits on local roads at certain times of the year to protect native animals, says wildlife lobbyist Maryland Wilson.
The president of Australian Wildlife Protection Council and a spokeswoman for Coalition for Wildlife Corridors, Ms Wilson is about to launch a roadkill map, which shows where native animals are most likely to be run over or hit by traffic.
It will carry a message asking drivers to slow down in areas where animals are likely to be seen crossing or grazing near roads.
She says Browns Road, which runs east-west from Main Ridge to Rye, and Boneo Road, which runs from the coast at Rosebud across the peninsula to Flinders, are hot spots for roadkill.
The map will be published next month with some financial support from Mornington Peninsula Shire, which is considering distributing the map and other material to more than 50 peninsula schools.
Ms Wilson says she is hoping the shire will adopt a policy to reduce speed limits during times when young mammals and birds leave home and are at their most vulnerable.
The speed cuts would be backed up by strict policing of limits and clearly visible signs.
The plan comes after The Mail last week reported criticism of state government policies on issuing kangaroo shooting permits to peninsula landholders and more farmers erecting kangaroo-proof fences.
Peninsula fauna ecologist Mal Legg of Rosebud says vehicles are a threat to dwindling roo numbers.
"It's the young kangaroos and old ones that are most likely to get knocked by cars."
Hans Brunner of Frankston, a renowned zoologist and animal forensic expert, says mating time is when many mammals and reptiles are being killed on roads.
"We see hundreds of blue-tongue lizards, snakes, tortoises and other creatures being killed every year when they go looking for mates."
Ms Wilson says there is an urgent need to create wildlife corridors, also called biolinks, that would enable animals to move safely from place to place.
"Fauna surveys conducted over the past 10 years highlight a major decline in the distribution and abundance of peninsula native animals," she said.
"Of 85 bushland reserves and private land bush blocks we surveyed, only five species of native terrestrial or arboreal mammals were present in more than half of the sites. Indicator species such as the eastern grey kangaroo and agile antechinus [a small carnivorous marsupial the size of a mouse] have seriously declined in numbers. Of the 85 sites, 70 had no eastern greys and in the remaining 15 they were extremely rare, as were other remaining species that once flourished in the region."
Ms Wilson says key habitat areas will need to be linked so re-colonisation and genetic exchange between populations can take place.
"Large bushland areas of wildlife corridors are urgently needed to link habitat between Devilbend Reserve and Western Port, from Devilbend to Arthurs Seat to Peninsula Gardens [Rosebud South] and Greens Bush in Mornington Peninsula National Park to Tootgarook Swamp."
She said this could only be done with the co-operation of private landowners, and the state government would need to provide subsidies.
WHAT NEEDS DOING
HE Australian Wildlife Protection Council says:
■ Without active intervention we will lose what wildlife is left within the next 15-20 years.
■ Wildlife trapped in isolated islands of bushland will die off due to loss of genetic diversity, the genes essential for species' survival.
■ Numbers of terrestrial animals and ground foraging birds have declined sharply due to loss of essential understorey vegetation.
■ We must quickly restore understoreys. Even bracken is an important component, essential for small terrestrial nesting birds.
■ Foxes and cats are pillaging our fauna in remaining bushland reserves. They have taken over the niche of quolls, antechinus, dunnarts and dingoes.
■ Species extinction is a process, not an event, and the time scale is highly variable and species specific. The time lag between landscape change and species loss is termed 'species relaxation' or 'extinction debt'. This means that even in the absence of further direct loss and fragmentation of habitat, degradation of habitats will continue as weed invasions, dieback, edge effects and other processes impact isolated remnants, and isolated populations will continue to suffer the effects of genetic drift, inbreeding and susceptibility to chance events.
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