Animal accidents
Around 100 commoners’ animals are killed or injured each year on the roads in the New Forest National Park. Read on to learn more about the accidents, to find out about what’s being done to reduce the carnage and to find out what you can do to help.
The open landscape of the New Forest where ponies, cattle, donkeys and pigs roam free is one of the distinctive qualities of the National Park. This is one of few areas in England, especially in the busy and developed south, where drivers may come face-to-face with animals on the road day or night.
The highest ever number of deaths recorded was 313 in 1962 and despite greatly increased traffic, this has fallen to less than 100 since 2000. Although every animal killed is a great loss to the Forest, and to its owner, the good news is that 2008 and 2009 had the lowest number of animal deaths (73 and 75) since records began in 1956.The challenge now is to reduce this even more.
For further details of recent accidents a map of animal accidents can be downloaded. This shows which roads are worst, primarily because they carry most traffic after dark when most accidents happen. You can see how the number of accidents each year has changed since 1985 by downloading the data sheet. Of interest here is that the 40mph zone was introduced across the north of the Forest in 1990 and across the south of the Forest in 1992.
Visit the Verderers' website for more animal accidents statistics.
Related documents
2008 animal accidents map (986 KB)
Data sheet - animal accidents since 1985 (20 KB)
Listen to one of our National Park team talk about animal accidents on The Park FM
