Humans percieve roads as lines that connect two points of interest (e.g. cities), whereas wildlife animals percieve the same roads as walls that separate parts of their habitat.
Building a road cuts a wildlife habiatat into two halfs. The total number of animals is not affected directly by building the road. However, each half has its gene pool halved, which tremendously decreases their ability to resist diseases, famines, droughts, wild fires, etc.
Topologically, humans see a line linking two points, and animals see a line separating two half-planes. The more dense the roads are, the smaller are the patches of land delineated by them. Every time I travel hundreds of miles of the United States roads, I think about this duality. I wonder how the so many deer manage to survive in so dense network of North East.
Posted by laza at January 16, 2004 06:23 PM