More than 40,000 Animals Killed on Korean Roads Over Past 3 Years: Data

A water deer, which was surprised by someone’s movement, is running away on the riverside of Namdae Stream in Yangyang, Gangwon Province on Apr. 28, 2022. (Yonhap)

SEOUL, Nov. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — More than 40,000 animals have died in roadkill accidents in Korea over the past three years, data showed Sunday.

The National Institute of Ecology reported that some 43,660 animals were reported as victims of roadkill between 2019 and 2021.

Among them, 29,349 were elks, accounting for 67.2 percent of all roadkill.

Elks were followed by raccoons (5,437), roe deer (2,039), ferrets (671), wild boars (573), badgers (522) and wild rabbits (161).

A majority of roadkill accidents occurred on national highways (29,086), followed by city, county and district roads (6,029), expressways (2,254) and local roads (3,192).

Statistics Korea said there were a total of 113,405 kilometers of paved roads in South Korea as of last year, which is more than 1 kilometer of road per square kilometer of national territory.

Animals that cover a lot of ground, like raccoons with a habitat of 0.8 to 1.2 square kilometers, have to live around roads that stretch longer than 1 kilometer.

Considering the unreported cases, the number of roadkills may exceed 100,000 cases, the research team said.

“Roads have been built for the convenience of mankind. They cannot suffer for the sake of our convenience,” said Song Eui-geun, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Ecology.

H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)