Millions of wild animals are killed annually on roads worldwide. During spring 2020, the volume of road traffic was reduced globally as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. We gathered data on wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC) from Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Israel, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and for Scotland and England within the United Kingdom. In all studied countries WVC statistics tend to be dominated by large mammals (various deer species and wild boar), while information on smaller mammals as well as birds are less well recorded. The expected number of WVC for 2020 was predicted on the basis of 2015-2019 WVC time series representing expected WVC numbers under normal traffic conditions. Then, the forecasted and reported WVC data were compared. The results indicate varying levels of WVC decrease between countries during the COVID-19 related traffic flow reduction (CRTR). While no significant change was determined in Sweden, where the state-wide response to COVID-19 was the least intensive, a decrease as marked as 37.4% was identified in Estonia. The greatest WVC decrease, more than 40%, was determined during the first weeks of CRTR for Estonia, Spain, Israel, and Czechia. Measures taken during spring 2020 allowed the survival of large numbers of wild animals which would have been killed under normal traffic conditions. The significant effects of even just a few weeks of reduced traffic, help to highlight the negative impacts of roads on wildlife mortality and the need to boost global efforts of wildlife conservation, including systematic gathering of roadkill data.

CDV Transport Research Centre Lisenska 33a Brno 636 00 Czechia

Department of Evolutionary and Environmental Biology and the Institute of Evolution University of Haifa Haifa 3498838 Israel

Department of Geography Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences University of Tartu Vanemuise 46 51014 Tartu Estonia

Environmental Protection College Trg mladosti 7 3320 Velenje Slovenia

Institute of Wildlife Management and Vertebrate Zoology University of Sopron Bajcsy Zsilinszky Sopron H 9400 Hungary

Langbein Wildlife Associates Greenleas Chapel Cleeve Minehead TA24 6HY United Kingdom

Metsähallitus Wildlife Service Finland Pohjoispuisto 7 FI 28100 Pori Finland

Norwegian Institute for Nature Research P O Box 5685 Torgarden NO 7485 Trondheim Norway

Ramat Hanadiv Nature Park Zikhron Yaakov 3095202 Israel

Section of Zoology Department of Animal Biology Parasitology Ecology Soil Science and Agrochemistry University of Salamanca Campus Miguel de Unamuno 37071 Salamanca Spain

Slovenian Forestry Institute Večna pot 2 1000 Ljubljana Slovenia

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences SLU; Grimsö Wildlife Research Station 73091 Riddarhyttan Sweden

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