Road mortality locations of small and medium-sized mammals along a partly-fenced highway in Quebec, Canada, 2012–2015

The data presented here consist of the locations of 839 roadkill points from four years (2012–2015) of roadkill surveys for small and medium-sized mammals (under 30 kg) from a four-lane highway in Quebec (Highway 175) during the months of May to October. Seventeen species or species groups were identified, all local to the area, and none of which were identified as species at risk, threatened, or endangered. The GPS coordinates of each roadkill event are given, along with the date, time of day (morning or evening), location (northbound or southbound lanes) and species (where possible). Within the surveyed road, 18 wildlife passages with 100 m fencing on each side of the passage entrances were built for small and medium-sized mammals. The GPS coordinates of the 18 passages and the end of each corresponding fence are also provided.


a b s t r a c t
The data presented here consist of the locations of 839 roadkill points from four years (2012-2015) of roadkill surveys for small and medium-sized mammals (under 30 kg) from a four-lane highway in Quebec (Highway 175) during the months of May to October. Seventeen species or species groups were identified, all local to the area, and none of which were identified as species at risk, threatened, or endangered. The GPS coordinates of each roadkill event are given, along with the date, time of day (morning or evening), location (northbound or southbound lanes) and species (where possible). Within the surveyed road, 18 wildlife passages with 100 m fencing on each side of the passage entrances were built for small and medium-sized mammals. The GPS coordinates of the 18 passages and the end of each corresponding fence are also provided.
& The data are available with this article.

Value of the data
The data may be useful for studying differences in roadkill densities between fenced and unfenced areas and the fence-end effect.
The roadkill data may be useful when studying the relationship between roadkill locations and the geometry of the road.
It may be of interest to study the relationship between roadkill locations and landscape factors. The data may be useful for examining spatial patterns in road mortality (e.g., hotspots) and for comparing roadkill aggregations with analyses of landscape connectivity (such as potential movement paths predicted by circuit theory).
Availability of several years of mortality data may be useful for a between-year comparison of the spatial patterns of road mortality.

Data
The data were collected along Highway 175 ( Fig. 1) between Quebec City and Saguenay as part of a project for the Ministry of Transport, Sustainable Mobility and Transportation Electrification of Quebec. The mortality data were collected by Bélanger-Smith [1] and Plante [2] and the full results are published in a report to the transport ministry in 2017 [3]. The data have also been used in Refs. [4,5].
Highway 175 is located between Quebec City and Saguenay and borders Jacques-Cartier National Park (Parc National de la Jacques-Cartier) and the Montmorency Forest, and runs through the Laurentides Wildlife Reserve (Réserve faunique des Laurentides). The highway is located in the boreal forest biome dominated by balsam fir (Abies balsamea) and black spruce (Picea mariana). In 2014, the average annual daily traffic flow (AADT) on HW 175 was estimated 6000 vehicles (Ministère des transports du Québec 2014) [6]. Actual counts showed that the AADT was 5900 vehicles per day during the years 2011-2015. In the summer months (June-September), this average was almost 30% higher (7560 veh./day), and about 20% lower (4680 veh./day) in the winter months (December-March) (personal communication Gabriel Langevin, Ministère des transports, de la mobilité durable et de l'électrification des transports du Québec). The proportion of trucks was 15%. In the summer months, traffic volume was twice as high on Fridays and Sundays as the annual average. In 2015, the AADT was 6200 veh./day, with 7900 veh./day in the summer months and 4900 veh./day in the winter months. During the years 2005-2015, annual traffic volumes increased by 2% per year [3: App. A]. There were no projections for the future available.
The highway was widened from 2 to 4 lanes in 2006-2011, and during construction wildlife passages were installed with fences. Of these passages, 18 underpasses designated for small and medium-sized mammals are within the road mortality surveyed area (Fig. 1). On both sides of each entrance of these passages, exclusion fences for medium-sized species were placed. Each fence is about 100 m long on each side of the passage entrances (i.e., about 200 m in total on either side of the road) and 90 cm high with a 6 cm Â 6 cm mesh size (Fig. 2).   (Table 1). Table 1 List of species and the roadkill amounts.

Experimental design, materials and methods
Mortality surveys were conducted on a stretch of Highway 175 in Quebec during the summer months, May to October, for 4 years, 2012-2015. No surveys were performed during the winter months due to snowplows' removal of roadkill.
Mortality surveys were conducted on a 136 km loop (68 km on the 2 lanes going south and 68 km on the 2 lanes going north) between km 75.5 and 143.5 of Highway 175.
The starting point of the surveys alternated between four locations to avoid potential bias that could result from using one starting point (point A ¼129 km N, point B ¼ 129 km S, point C ¼ 103km N and point D ¼ 103km S). Surveys were conducted at an average speed of 70 km/h, with one driver and one observer, and it took approximately 3 h to complete a survey. For each carcass found the GPS coordinates, location (northbound or southbound lanes) and the species (if possible) were documented and the carcass was then removed from the road. At all times in the field, wearing a reflective/safety vest, adequate shoes and a yellow protective helmet was mandatory and while searching for roadkill or stopping to document roadkill an amber flash security light bar on the roof of the vehicle and the vehicle's hazard warning lights were on.
The surveys were conducted in sessions completed over 2-week intervals as shown in Table 2. The first 3 days consisted of evening surveys (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday), then no survey on Thursday and the next 6 days consisted of morning surveys (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) and then no surveys on the last 4 days (Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday). The evening surveys started three hours before sunset and the morning surveys started 30 min after sunrise.
Over the 4 years, a total of 34 complete sessions were performed resulting in 306 road mortality surveys (Table 3). Of these, 102 surveys were performed in the evenings, and 204 in the mornings.