The Sticky Bottle Team is thinking about flat snakes.
It is amazing how many of the unfortunate critters get run over in the warm
weather months--they go flat pretty quick. In your car snakes go unnoticed;
on a bike they are prevalent. Most riders will even see a live one cross
their paths at some point. The SBT even keeps an unofficial "snake
count" following rides with the number of alive and the number of
"flat." Flat usually wins out. Next time you are riding
during snake season keep a lookout for our scaly friends, they would
appreciate it.
The SBT looked at some statistics. According to
research conducted by high school students in 25 schools throughout New
England, reptiles represent only 3% of all road kill. Mammals, at 81% are
most likely to meet the front end of some heavy Detroit iron followed by birds
at 15%. In the 1% category are former animals that met such a gruesome
fate they are determined to be "undeterminable."
To further break this down, the most common road kill
animal is the squirrel with over 41 million killed each year by both swerving and
non-swerving drivers. Cats at 26 million are next, followed by rats (22
million), opossums (19 million), raccoons (15 million), dogs (6 million) and
finally deer at 350,000. As luck would have it for our antlered friends,
deer are the animal most likely to survive a car collision.
These statistics show that our reptile friends are pretty
lucky when compared to their mammal and bird cousins at dodging bumpers and
hoods. Next time we ride we will indeed encounter some road kill and to
show our respect for nature and the world we share we will have a moment of
silence. Visit our website: www.stickybottleteam.teampages.com
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