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31 March 2025 | Story Andre Damons | Photo Andre Damons
Prof Aliza le Roux
Prof Aliza le Roux, Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences and Professor in the Department of Zoology and Entomology, at the Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC2025).

Animals in mountainous areas around the world, in particular endangered, vulnerable, and near threatened mammals, are at risk of becoming roadkill as road networks expand further into these previously inaccessible terrains.

These mammals, which fall into the category of conservation risk according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) definitions, include African wild dogs (endangered), lions and leopards (both vulnerable), elephants (endangered), and honey badgers (NT – near threatened). Among the road-killed birds found in these areas are the hooded vulture (critically endangered) and the endangered steppe eagle.

This is according to Prof Aliza le Roux, Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences and Professor in the Department of Zoology and Entomology, who presented research during a session at the Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC2025). Prof Le Roux, a behavioural ecologist studying how animals respond to risks and opportunities in the environment, did an oral presentation titled Patterns of wildlife-vehicle collision in montane environments during a session on Mountain biodiversity: animals.

The conference, under the patronage of UNESCO and organised by the University of the Free State (UFS) Afromontane Research Unit (ARU) – in partnership with the African Mountain Research Foundation (AMRF) and the Global Mountain Safeguard Research Programme (GLOMOS) – brought together researchers, policy makers, and practitioners from across Southern Africa and beyond. It delved into critical issues around mountain ecosystems, communities, governance, and transboundary cooperation.

For the research, Prof Le Roux, Dr Katlego Mashiane, Lecturer in the UFS Department of Geography, and Dr Clara Grilo from the BIOPOLIS project in Portugal, looked for published data/papers from 1971 to 2024, finding that most of the published literature on roadkill in Africa came from the 21st Century.

 

Heightens risks to wildlife

According to her, they found that amphibians were killed at the highest rate in the mountainous regions, while mammals were killed most frequently in the low-lying regions. Mammalian species classified as near threatened or more vulnerable to extinction on the IUCN Red List were most frequently found in the high-elevation mountains (7,7% of species killed in these areas), but also in low-lying areas (3,8% of mammalian roadkill). About 3% of the birds killed at moderate elevations were also of conservation concern.

“Increased vehicular traffic and better-paved roads in montane environments heighten the risks to wildlife inhabiting these regions, including the potential for more wildlife-vehicle collisions, leading to higher mortality rates. In terms of sheer numbers, many more small species (less than 1 kg in adult weight) are killed than larger species. This is probably because we either don’t see them or don’t care if we hit them. But we do care if our cars collide with something large like an eland – it does damage to us as well as them.”

“Unpredictable weather patterns and sudden topographical changes all contribute to these roads potentially being more hazardous for both drivers and any surrounding wildlife: the ruggedness of these terrains and tortuosity of roads can make it harder for drivers and wild animals to detect one another on mountain roads, increasing the likelihood of collisions,” writes Prof Le Roux and her colleagues.

The researchers estimated the roadkill rates for each observed species and then analysed the correlation with topographic aspects of the study sites. They used the 90m digital elevation model downloaded from the geospatial cloud-computing platform Google Earth Engine and classified ‘high’ elevation mountains as regions lying above 2 000 metres above sea level (masl), ‘moderate’ elevation mountains as lying between 1 500 and 2 000 masl, and ‘low’ regions as areas below 1 500 masl.

 

Limited data

Prof Le Roux and Dr Mashiane also extracted slope and the topographic ruggedness index. Roadkill rates were estimated for 15 different amphibian species, 98 reptilian, 261 avian, and 273 mammalian species, comprising 5 549 individual road kills.

“These findings indicate that roads in mountainous African regions pose a high risk to our indigenous wildlife. The accidents in mountainous areas are something to be aware of, as we are moving further into mountains where there is often vulnerable and unique biodiversity. When we do kill vertebrates through a collision, it is often a species that we would not find in low-lying areas.”

Unfortunately, Prof Le Roux says, they cannot say what the continental patterns are because so little data is available about biodiversity and roadkill patterns in the central and western parts of the continent. The data they found came from only 10 countries, and almost none of the studies took the form of systematic, longitudinal monitoring. The data sets were all ‘snapshots’ of roadkill in specific areas.

News Archive

A new dawn for student governance
2011-09-02

 

Our SRC presidents: Richard Chemaly (Bloemfontein Campus) and Bongani Ncgaca (Qwaqwa Campus)
Photo: Hannes Pieterse

Photo Gallery
 

The successful and peaceful completion of the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Student Representative (SRC) elections 2011 herals a new dawn for student governance with the announcement of the results today (1 September 2011).

The SRC elections at the Qwaqwa Campus were completed on 25 August 2011, while the elections at our Bloemfontein Campus took place on 29 and 30 August 2011.

“A new dawn heralds a new day when Richard Chemaly, the son of Lebanese immigrants becomes President of an SRC, as elected by students from all racial backgrounds and from across the student body at large. A new day has arrived when candidates could have won voter support across racial lines; a new day is here when all SRC members are now recognised leaders on the basis of academic accountability,” the Dean of Student Affairs, Mr Rudi Buys, says.

A new dawn has arrived; firstly, insofar as student elections for the choice of student leaders at the UFS now proceed according to a non-racial and a non-party political basis.

Not only did the SRC elections at both the Bloemfontein and Qwaqwa Campuses achieve its required quorum, with 31% (4 729 votes) and 50% (2 112 votes) voter turnout, respectively, but the SRC elected by students at the Bloemfontein Campus is 55% black and 45% white, and 60% female and 40% male. The numbers of votes gained by successful candidates also indicate that voters from all racial backgrounds have voted for their candidates of choice.

Secondly, a new dawn has arrived insofar as student governance occupied by only some student groups claiming to speak on behalf of all students has made way for direct voting for candidates by the broad student body and the threefold increase of student governance structures on campus.

Not only did all students at our Bloemfontein and Qwaqwa Campuses (a total of 15 173 and 4 257, respectively) have the opportunity to participate in voting directly, but nine additional Student Councils were established at our Bloemfontein Campus that each holds an ex officio seat on the SRC and allows for student governance in all the major student sectors of the student body, such as for postgraduate students, international students and all categories of student associations.

The various councils now established include the Student Academic Affairs Council, the Student Associations Council, the Postgraduate Student Council, the International Student Council, the Student Media Council, the Residences Student Council, the Commuter Student Council and the Rag Community Service Fundraising and Service Councils. In addition, all faculties also introduced student representative structures at departmental and faculty level in 2011 to ensure student participation in faculty management and governance.

The SRC members at the Bloemfontein Campus are:

Elective portfolios:
President: Mr Richard Chemaly
Vice-President: Mr Lefata David Maklein
Secretary: Ms Matshepo Ramokgadi
Treasurer: Mr Werner Pretorius
Arts & Culture: Ms Alta Grobelaar
Accessibility & Student Support: Mr William Clayton
First-generation Students: Ms Petre du Plessis
Media, Marketing & Liaison: Ms Biejanka Calitz
Sport: Mr Bonolo Thebe
Student Development & Environmental Affairs: Ms Busisiwe Madikizela
Transformation: Ms Qaqamba Mhlauli

Ex officio portfolios:
Dialogue & Ex officio: Associations Student Council: Mr Anesu Ruswa
Academic Affairs & Ex officio: Academic Affairs Student Council: Mr Jean Vermaas
Residence Affairs & Ex officio: Campus Residences Student Council: Ms Mpho Mokaleng
City student Affairs & Ex officio: Commuter Student Council: Ms Annemieke Plekker
Postgraduate Affairs & Ex officio: Postgraduate Student Council: Ms Glancina Mokone
International Affairs & Ex officio: International Student Council: Mr Pitso Ramokoatsi
Student Media Affairs & Ex officio: Student Media Council: Ms Nicole Heyns
RAG Community Service & Ex officio: RAG Fundraising Council: Ms Iselma Parker
RAG Community Service & Ex officio: RAG Community Service Council: Ms Motheo Pooe

In the Qwaqwa elections, SASCO achieved 36,84% of the vote, with SADESMO, PASMA and NASMO each achieving 29,73% and 18,56% and 12,74%, respectively .

Mr Bongani Ncgaca was elected as the President of the SRC at our Qwaqwa Campus, while the names of the SRC members at the campus will be announced on 7 September 2011.

The Central SRC will be established on 8 September 2011 by a joint sitting of the two SRCs.

The successful completion of the SRC elections at the Bloemfontein Campus follows a yearlong review process of student governance by a Broad Student Transformation Forum (BSTF) that consists of 59 delegations from student organisations and residences. The BSTF adopted independent candidacy for elective portfolios and additional student councils to provide ex officio seats on the SRC as the template for student governance, following the consideration of a series of benchmarking reports on student governance nationally and internationally.

The UFS Council adopted the new SRC Constitution, as drafted and submitted by the BSTF, on 3 June 2011. 
 

Media Release
1 September 2011
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: news@ufs.ac.za
 

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