The Barrier Truth
Researchers at UNSW’s Arid Zone Research Station,
north of Broken Hill, have demonstrated a ten-fold increase in native wildlife
road collisions during drought, with animals travelling longer distances
searching for food and water, or grazing the greener patches of grass found
along the roadside. In
December 2018, during one of the most severe droughts on record in NSW, I
undertook a project to systematically document native wildlife ‘road kill’
along a stretch of the Barrier Highway between Broken Hill and Wilcannia. The
more than seven hundred images produced for this project capture scenes that
are shocking, and a bleak reminder of the effects of a changing climate on
our natural environment.