Help UK wildlife - be a ’Splatter Spotter’

Roadkill is a sad but familiar sight in Britain, and it's quite common to see a variety of unfortunate wildlife who have perished on roads across the country. Now a team of researchers led by Dr Sarah Perkins from the School of Biosciences have come up with the uniquely named Project Splatter - a survey of UK wildlife roadkill, building up a comprehensive picture of all the animal species being killed and where in particular it is happening. Over the next 2 years, the data reported will help to produce a 'roadkill map' for the whole of the UK. Project Splatter is a citizen science project which relies on the general public to submit data via social media. 'Splatter spotters' report their roadkill sightings on Facebook and Twitter and the data is then collated to establish whether there are any trends forming or hotspots developing. This is the first survey of its kind in the UK and the data could eventually lead to solutions for reducing the numbers of wildlife killed on Britain's roads. Dr Sarah Perkins said: "We've been surprised at how many reports we've received from members of the public so far - surprised because people really seem to enjoy reporting data to us.