How the language we use may shape the way we think and feel about — and respond to — wildlife collisions
What Happens After a Wildlife Collision?
The call came in just after dusk.
A koala had been hit on a regional road near Lismore. When volunteers arrived, the driver was still there — shaken, apologetic, unable to stop replaying the moment in their mind.
The koala was alive but injured. A pouch check revealed a joey still clinging silently to its mother.
Across Australia, scenes like this – car collisions with wildlife – unfold every night on roads that cut through forests, bushland, and wildlife corridors. And yet, something else happens too. People stop. They call wildlife rescue hotlines. They wait beside injured animals in the dark. Some cry. Some stay long after help arrives because they do not want to leave the animal alone.
Wildlife collisions are now one of the most common forms of human-wildlife interaction in modern Australia.
These are not the actions of people who see wildlife as disposable.
Most Drivers Do Not Want to Hit Animals
Most Australians do not want to hit animals. Wildlife rescuers hear it repeatedly on the phone: “I didn’t see her until the last second.” “I tried to brake.” “Please tell me there’s something I can do?”
If you hit an animal on the road, wildlife rescue organisations urge drivers not to simply continue driving if it is safe to stop. Pull over safely, turn on your hazard lights, and call a local wildlife rescue hotline as soon as possible. Never put yourself in danger from traffic, and avoid handling large injured animals directly, but if it is safe to do so, check whether the animal is still alive and whether there is a joey in the pouch of a marsupial. Many young animals survive collisions even when their mother does not.
For rescuers, one phone call can mean the difference between life and death.
Why the Word “Roadkill” Matters
Yet despite these deeply human reactions, we often describe such moments with a strangely detached word:
“Roadkill.”
The term emerged during the rise of modern car culture and expanding highway systems, becoming shorthand for animals killed by vehicles. Over time it entered everyday language so casually that it is now often used jokingly, metaphorically, or as little more than a roadside inconvenience.
But words matter.
“Roadkill” compresses a violent collision between a vehicle and a living creature into something that sounds almost incidental — part of the background scenery of modern roads. The emotional reality is far more complex.
How Modern Roads Distance Us From Wildlife
Perhaps part of the reason is that modern roads are designed and understood in highly clinical ways. Roads are measured through speed, efficiency, traffic flow, freight movement, travel times, and accident statistics. In that system, landscapes can begin to feel less like living ecosystems and more like transport corridors built for uninterrupted movement.
Drivers are taught to maintain control, keep traffic flowing, and avoid sudden manoeuvres. Road planning focuses heavily on vehicle capacity and human safety, often treating wildlife deaths as unfortunate but inevitable side effects of mobility.
Over time, this creates a kind of emotional distancing. The animals most affected by roads become statistics, hazards, or “roadkill” rather than living creatures moving through fragmented habitats that existed long before the asphalt.
Wildlife Rescue Shows the Reality Behind Wildlife Collisions
And yet the human response tells another story entirely.
Australian Koala
Wildlife rescue hotlines exist because people care enough to stop. Volunteers are called out nightly because motorists do not simply view injured animals as roadside debris. Many drivers remain deeply affected long after a collision occurs, replaying the moment for years afterwards.
Perhaps the disconnect is not that people do not care. Perhaps it is that modern transport systems have normalised wildlife deaths to such an extent that our language no longer fully reflects what many people actually feel when these collisions occur.
Is There a Better Word Than “Roadkill”?
Even the alternatives we use — “wildlife collisions,” “fauna strikes,” “animal-vehicle incidents” — often sound technical or bureaucratic, struggling to fully capture the emotional and ecological reality involved.
Perhaps the question is not whether the word “roadkill” should disappear entirely, but whether it has become too small and emotionally detached for the scale of what it now represents.
The language we use shapes how much urgency, empathy, and responsibility society attaches to these events.
Changing the Way We Respond to Wildlife Collisions
Every wildlife rescue hotline call tells a different story from the one implied by the word “roadkill.” It tells a story of shock, empathy, responsibility, and often heartbreak. It reveals that many people already recognise wildlife collisions not as meaningless roadside events, but as deeply distressing encounters with living creatures whose habitats increasingly intersect with fast-moving roads.
Maybe changing the language alone will not save wildlife. But changing the way we think, drive, design roads, and respond to these collisions might.
Slow down in wildlife zones. Stay alert at dawn and dusk. Call for help if an animal is injured. Support wildlife crossings, safer road design, and lower speeds in known habitat corridors.
Australia’s roads do not pass through empty space. They pass through living ecosystems.
And perhaps recognising that — emotionally as well as practically — is where real change begins.
