Reporting System for Road Kill Utilizing Mobile Devices

Abstract

Living in an expanding industrialized society requires the creation and maintenance of functional roadways that meet the needs of a mobile population. Roads are essential for commuters to travel to their desired destinations, yet they may be constructed anywhere and everywhere without sufficient thought about possible consequences to the surrounding environment. As vehicles travel on current roadways, they may be killing surrounding wildlife on a daily basis. This destruction of wildlife, known as road kill, is an increasingly common problem that must be addressed. Urban dwellers need to know that the surrounding animal environment is an important consideration when roads are constructed or improved. The overall goal of this project was to assist in creating a repository of data related to road kill. Researchers could gather information and formulate findings from the database through web-based data mining tools that are implemented now and in the future for the project. Development planners could then present their findings to minimize the negative impact of urban development upon wildlife and humans. The implementation goal of this project was to design and develop a functional mobile application that could conduct transect observations using a Global Positioning System. Another aspect of this undertaking was to permit crowd-sourcing road kill information through an i Phone device that utilizes an Application Program Interface for reporting observations to a remote database.