Kari Gunson will present the Department of Biological Sciences seminar with a talk entitled, "The emergence of road ecology and solutions for mitigating impacts on wildlife".

Road ecology emerged in Canada in the mid-80's with the construction of several large animal wildlife crossing structures that included two large wildlife overpasses in Banff National Park, Alberta. Meanwhile in the 1990's Kari graduated from the MSc. program in Conservation Biology at the University of Cape Town. Upon her return to Canada, Kari, landed a one-of-a-kind job as a research scientist monitoring the effectiveness of the crossing structures from 1999 to 2005. Kari now combines Geographic Information System Science and road ecology data to map road-kill hotspots to prioritize where mitigation is required for turtles, snakes, and larger mammals in North America. Her talk will highlight her work in Banff National Park and the past 11 years in Ontario, Canada and describe the planning, implementation and monitoring phases of road-mitigation for wildlife in Canada. 

Kari Gunson completed the CB Conservation Biology Master's program at UCT in the 1990's and now mitigates wildlife-road conflict in North America.