Why Didn’t the Bird Cross the Road?

Abstract

Roads are very useful: we build them so we can travel to the grocery store, see our friends, and take day trips to the beach. However, when we clear land to build our roads, we destroy the homes of other animals. If your home was destroyed, what would you do? Find a new home of course! But roads make this very difficult for other animals, at least for larger animals. Not many studies have looked into the impacts of roads on smaller animals, such as birds. So, we decided to investigate this ourselves. Why birds? They have wings and can fly, right? Surprisingly, we found fewer birds crossed as roads became wider. We also found that the small birds that need forests to survive were the ones most impacted by roads. These findings show us that, despite appearances, birds are as vulnerable as other animals to human activities.