Wildlife Friendly Roads Campaign
The Wildlife Friendly Roads Campaign is one of the NWC’s flagship initiatives, designed to reduce the devastating toll that roads take on native wildlife and our network of rescuers and rehabilitators.
Each year, millions of animals are injured or killed on our roads, and our member groups see first-hand the suffering caused by wildlife-vehicle collisions. In fact, it is the number one cause of native animal death and rescue in the state. By combining evidence-based strategies, community engagement, and strategic partnerships, the campaign aims to create safer roadways, save countless animal lives, and ease the burden on our wildlife rescue frontline.
A cornerstone of the campaign is our statewide social media outreach and grassroots poster program, which brings vital road-safety messages directly to drivers. To engage families and young people, we’ve developed fun, family-friendly learning packs that include wildlife safety information, interactive activities, and colouring pages. We synchronize these efforts with school holiday periods, when traffic on regional roads spikes due to tourism—aligning outreach with peak risk periods ensures our messages reach the highest number of drivers when they matter most.
We’ve also built strong strategic partnerships with caravan parks and major tourism operators such as Perisher and Smiggins Hole ski resorts, expanding our reach to travellers in high-risk wildlife areas. We’re now attempting engagement with corporate partners, including leading petrol station brands, to open more opportunities for campaign materials to appear in bathrooms and forecourts—locations with high visibility and dwell time. Additionally, we collaborate with Transport for NSW on coordinated social campaigns to raise driver awareness and encourage responsible behaviour. These relationships have not only extended the campaign’s reach but have also built enduring alliances that strengthen wildlife protection efforts state-wide.
Another critical component of the campaign is our wildlife road-mapping initiative, which leverages the invaluable knowledge of our member rescuers. These volunteers, who respond daily to road-injured wildlife, hold unmatched insight into the most dangerous collision zones in their area. This collision data and local insights has paved the way for trials of dynamic road signage with Transport for NSW, and is shaping our conversations with decision-makers.
We’re working with Waze and other navigation platforms to integrate in-car wildlife alerts. This innovation has the potential to provide real-time warnings to drivers in areas of high wildlife activity—particularly during breeding or migration seasons—offering a practical, scalable solution to prevent collisions before they happen.
Together, these efforts highlight the NWC’s unique role as a peak body: uniting local insights, advocating at a state level, and working across sectors to deliver innovative, evidence-based solutions. The Wildlife Friendly Roads Campaign embodies the power of collaboration—bringing government, community, technology, and industry together to make NSW’s roads safer for both people, wildlife, and the resilient members of the state’s wildlife sector.