African Wildlife & Environment Issue 79

LETTERS

if there isn't a similar setup in the areas where I encountered these road-kills. if I had the time on my trip it would have been great to be able to rescue the injured owl and take it to a rehab centre. Perhaps a WESSA branch in the area I mentioned earlier on in particular can look into whether a facility of that nature does actually exist or can be established. Ivan Foster. 0844888515 ivanfoster5703@gmail.com We forwarded Ivan's letter to Wendy Collinson-Jonker at the EndangeredWildlife Trust, and thank her for this response: Hi Ivan, Aside from the number of roadkill that you saw, I hope you had a great trip. I did a similar trip a few years ago, assuming that I wouldn’t see much roadkill and was quite shocked.At the Endangered Wildlife Trust, we have a centralised database where we keep roadkill records that are sent to us via our roadkill app. (You might want to download this from the Google Playstore -it’s called RoadWatch). Interestingly, several species that you mention are some of the most common that we have recorded, in addition to Black-backed Jackal, Serval and nightjars. The database has over 30,000 datapoints, and is invaluable in helping us identify areas where we need to apply mitigation. At the moment, we are working on the N3 highway, but I hear that the N2 is also quite bad for roadkill numbers. Please consider downloading the app – otherwise, you can send reports through via email.Thanks again for alerting us. Kind Regards Wendy Collinson-Jonker Wildlife and Transport Programme Manager EndangeredWildlife Trust C + 27 73 596 1673 | Email: wendyc@ewt.org.za | Web: www.ewt.org.za | Skype: wendy.collinson21 Research Fellow: South African Research Chair in Biodiversity Value & Change, School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences, University of Venda,Thohoyandou, South Africa.

Morning John, I have just spent the last hour reading through your excellent African Wildlife & Environment magazine. This is really a top publication linking quality information on conservation, research, key sustainability issues, global conservation politics and local actions with the general intelligent public. I know of no better in Southern Africa. Congratulations!! I hope that this gets spread far beyond the WESSA membership. May I share with the NCE’s 70 NGO members and some of our key partners (e.g. Namibian government agencies)? Kind regards, Dr Chris Brown 20 Nachtigal Street, Ausspannplatz,Windhoek Tel: +264 (0)61 240 140 NCE Mobile: +264 (0)81 162 5807 e-mail: ceo@n-c-e.org www.n-c-e.org Black-backed Jackal in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park (Photograph: John Wesson) NCE democratizes access to environmental information at www.the-eis.com - Namibia's one-stop-shop for retrieving, submitting and publishing environmental information. We welcome feedback from our readers, and you are all encouraged to send us your letters to express your opinions.

7 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 79 (2021)