{"id":390559,"date":"2026-01-04T07:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T07:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/390559\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T07:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T07:07:11","slug":"council-installs-game-changing-road-safety-device-in-fences-around-aussie-tourist-hotspot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/390559\/","title":{"rendered":"Council installs game-changing road safety device in fences around Aussie tourist hotspot"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new road safety invention has been trialled at a popular tourist destination, just in time for the summer holidays. Queensland\u2019s<\/a> Bribie Island is home to just 22,000 people, but it\u2019s visited by hundreds of thousands of vehicles every year, and that leads to a rise in collisions with its wildlife.<\/a><\/p>\n

The City of Moreton Bay <\/a>had already erected high fences around key hotspots, but it didn\u2019t entirely fix the problem.<\/p>\n

Its coordinator of green infrastructure, Bernadette May, explained to Yahoo News the fences are designed to \u201cchoreograph\u201d wildlife towards safer crossing points.<\/p>\n

But there are always stretches of fencing that will \u201cleak\u201d, allowing animals to get onto the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou try your best, but you\u2019re always going to have situations where wildlife finds itself on the wrong side of the fence,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when it becomes a real issue, because they get stressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

To combat the problem, the council has trialled a new line of one-way kangaroo safety hatches that allow wayward animals to escape from the road, but not re-enter.<\/p>\n

How big an issue are kangaroo collisions?<\/p>\n

In 2024, collisions with animals resulted in 12,000 claims to insurer IAG,<\/a> across Queensland, NSW, ACT, South Australia and Western Australia, with kangaroos linked to 85 per cent.<\/p>\n

The council had already installed 16 smaller koala escape hatches on its roads, ahead of last year\u2019s breeding season when males roam in search of mates and new territory.<\/p>\n

During that program, camera monitoring at two sites confirmed they were being used by koalas and echidnas.<\/p>\n

There were no collisions involving koalas in the vicinity of the hatches.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The hatches were initially trialled with koalas. Source: City of Moreton Bay<\/p>\n

What’s next for the escape hatches?<\/p>\n

This year was the first time larger devices, specifically designed to accommodate the movement of kangaroos and wallabies, were trialled.<\/p>\n

Seven were installed at four sites, with some devices created by Endeavour Veterinary Ecology (EVE), and others internally designed.<\/p>\n

Council is now looking to roll them out in more locations, and there is hope that more local government areas could follow.<\/p>\n

EVE technology manager Natasha Banville said it\u2019s great to see the simple devices having a \u201creal world impact\u201d in protecting wildlife, and they could be rolled out nationwide.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it’s estimated that around 10 million native animals are killed on Australian roads each year due to vehicle collisions, research with trials like these are key to reduce human-wildlife conflict on our roads, which are catastrophic, not just for wildlife, but for people on the road too,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Love Australia’s weird and wonderful environment? \ud83d\udc0a\ud83e\udd98\ud83d\ude33 Get our new newsletter<\/a> showcasing the week\u2019s best stories.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new road safety invention has been trialled at a popular tourist destination, just in time for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,186861,10587,188356,209157],"class_list":["post-390559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-city-of-moreton-bay","tag-road-safety","tag-tourist-destination","tag-vehicle-collisions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}