Although collecting information on roadkill is not for the faint of heart, the data it provides is valuable. Researching roadkill helps inform our strategies to decrease wildlife collisions and to preserve biological diversity in the Sonoran Desert. We are excited to announce that our 2025 roadkill survey season will be a continuation of a long-term monitoring project led by Dr. Brian Blais (read the published paper here).
The survey routes for this season will occur near Ironwood National Monument, Saguaro National Park West/Picture Rocks, Picacho Peak/Oro Valley, and Saguaro National Park East/ Colossal Cave. These are ecologically sensitive areas and monitoring roadkill in these areas helps to better inform our recommendations for future connectivity and wildlife crossing projects.
Wildlife crossing structures, including bridges, underpasses, and funnel fencing, help wildlife safely move between open spaces to find mates and new home ranges. We continue to advocate for more crossings in areas such as Interstate 10 at Avra Valley Road as well as south of Cienega Creek, on State Route 86, and on Interstate 19 south of Green Valley.
“In the last few years, we have seen four black bears killed on I-10 near Vail, one colliding with a semi-truck and causing traffic delays,” says Jessica Moreno, Conservation Science Director for CSDP, “And a mountain lion in the Tucson Mountains, which was the only breeding female there at the time, was killed on Picture Rocks Rd.”
Our Desert Roadies are volunteers who go road cruising at sunrise and sunset to look for animals, alive or dead, on their assigned survey route. By doing surveys at these times, we’re able to see what was hit during that past evening, night, and early morning before they are moved off the road by humans or scavengers.
In the Sonoran Desert, the best season for roadkill surveys is when wildlife are on the move the most: Spring, Monsoon, and early Fall. For the 2025 season, each team will collect data twice a month, mid April through mid November, for a total of 14 surveys.
With our project relaunch, we are looking for volunteers (“Desert Roadies”) who can commit to completing these 14 roadkill surveys for the 2025 season. Volunteers with prior experience conducting scientific surveys using a GPS unit or smartphone app, and skill in identifying Sonoran Desert wildlife species, are strongly preferred.
Don’t miss our upcoming talk and training session on Thursday, March 6th, at 9am! We’ll talk about how we use roadkill data, what this survey will mean for future wildlife crossings in southern Arizona and how to get involved!
Historic Y Conference Room
300 E. University Blvd., Tucson, AZ
Everyone is welcome! If you are interested in helping us with this survey season, we highly suggest you attend!
If you have an observation of wildlife on a road (dead or alive), please share it on our “CSDP Safe Passages” project at https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/csdp-safe-passages or by using the iNaturalist app. We also recommend joining the “Roadkill of the Sonoran Desert” project in iNaturalist, which is managed by Saguaro National Park. Learn how here: