Five percent of all road kill in the U.S. is never identified.
To the long list of reasons to ride your bike we can now safely add “scientific research.” According to Wired, a “roadkill observation project” was launched this week by Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, an organization dedicated to bridging the gap between scientific researchers and adventurous outdoor types. Basically, they want you to document roadkill on your rides.
There are some genuine benefits for the scientific community here, but really, they pale in comparison to the advantages to the cycling community. First and foremost, this adds an entirely new and seemingly airtight argument for riding a bike almost continually–a particularly nice development for more aged and doughy riders for whom the “I’m training” argument rings increasingly hollow, particularly when you haven’t registered for any competitive event short of pie eating since at least 1985.
Far more important, though, is the sense of connectedness–and a legitimate, “larger than ourselves” kind of purposeful connectedness, too, not just that cheesy, digital kind. I’m talking real connections.
“I think that cyclists and the pedestrian world have this weird connection to roadkill because of the risk we’re always facing,” says Fraser Shilling, University of California, Davis ecologist and the man behind the idea to link adventure and scientific data.
Disconcerting and somewhat disturbing as that sentiment may be–in fact I’m still processing it hours after having first read it–the data-collection argument for bike riding really is all about connecting with the world around you in a more meaningful way. Messy and unpleasant as documenting roadkill may seem, the Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation’s program offers an entirely new and exotic kind of smug, a strange and just slightly demented new way to make the world a better place–which is much more than your over-competitive asshole of a friend can say about the new personal best Strava data he just posted, which frankly seems a little fishy, even if his wife did just buy him that new bike which was really a crock of shit anyway because it was his yearly bonus money she used to buy it and he only even got the bonus in the first place because he’s like naturally gifted at smiling that shit-eating smile of his and slapping guys on the back and wearing his Drakkar Noir and power ties.
How pathetic and futile these narcissistic concerns seem to you now as you straddle your aging bike at the side of the road, holding your phone above what may have been a platypus, or just a duck that died while engaged in some sort of terrible disagreement with a squirrel.
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