Skip to main content

Care taken to create crab-crossing on Christmas Island

How to avoid cars and animals meeting head-on has taxed road and highway designers for years. Many schemes exist but some road and overpass designs are more successful than others. Fencing off a roadway is one method of preventing animals, usually large ones such as bears and moose, from wandering into the paths of oncoming vehicles. Another way to keep animals, and people, safe is to build an animal-friendly overpass where the surface appears as a continuation of the nearby landscape – hopefully an e
July 9, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
How to avoid cars and animals meeting head-on has taxed road and highway designers for years.

Many schemes exist but some road and overpass designs are more successful than others.

Fencing off a roadway is one method of preventing animals, usually large ones such as bears and moose, from wandering into the paths of oncoming vehicles. Another way to keep animals, and people, safe is to build an animal-friendly overpass where the surface appears as a continuation of the nearby landscape – hopefully an encouragement to animals.

That may be alright for the bears and moose of this world. But what about smaller one, such as the migrating red crab on Australia’s Christmas Island.

The tropical island, a territory administered by Australia, is only around 135km2 – more than half of this a national park – and is distant 3,385km to Australia’s shores. Crabs far outnumber the 2,000 or more permanent residents.

One ingenious method top keep the crusty critters from getting crushed can be seen by %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 oLinkExternal clicking here Visit matadornetwork.com website false http://matadornetwork.com/change/6-of-the-worlds-most-ingenious-wildlife-overpasses-pics/ false false%> and scrolling down to number 6.

Other methods exist to keep the little crustaceans safe and a lot of thought has gone into their development, as well physical work by park officials and volunteers.

On Christmas Island, staff and locals stand by the road ready to help with garden rakes to help keep the crabs out from under cars. Temporary fencing is set up to keep crabs off the roads and funnel them to special crab crossings. The crossings need to be cleared of a year's worth of debris in order to be effective.

As the below video shows, their huge effort has resulted in a lot more crabs safely reaching the island’s coast to spawn.

Related Content

  • Godshilla makes a run for it and blocks Isle of Wight road
    February 23, 2016
    It was a heart-stopping moment late one night as a car approached an 8m tall animal that was blocking the road. Most people, seeing what should have been an extinct dinosaur – a triceratops – in their path would have turned and run in the opposite direction. But for people in the English village of Godsill, on the Isle of Wight, the dinosaur was a well-known resident, albeit not a living animal. Chris Hollingshead snapped the photo and put it on his Facebook, which can be seen by clicking here.
  • VIDEO: Slow down. Salmon crossing
    November 15, 2016
    Forget moose, ducks and other wildlife that cross a highway. It’s time for a new road sign - “Salmon Crossing” - as this video from the US state of Washington shows.

    It can happen when salmon are making their way from the Pacific Ocean to their spawning grounds up the same river where they were born. If the river is in flood, the fish can find themselves following the water roiling over a road.
  • A sinkhole in St Albans near London swallows up the road
    October 9, 2015
    Around 20 residents of St Albans, a town near London, were evacuated after a huge sinkhole appeared overnight. The hole, 20m in diameter and 10m deep, cut right across at the road and well into an adjoining garden, leaving one family’s car stranded on the driveway. Residents are said to have heard a crash before the huge crater appeared, according to a BBC report. The local fire service said it had been aware of a small hole that was due to be filled in, but a resident called the station at 1:30 in the mor
  • VIDEO: Kangaroo takes out cyclist down under
    July 25, 2016
    It caught all the cyclists by surprise when a young bounding kangaroo decided to hurl itself at the peloton during a bicycle race in Australia. A fellow racer trailing behind took the video. The targeted cyclist was severely bruised from hitting the deck and he needed stitches. But the marauding kangaroo apparently died from its injuries when it slammed into the bike at a right angle. Cyclists being taken out by kangaroos is more common than most non-Australians would think. Click here to see one cycl