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By the nature of traffic, i.e. longer pauses between trains, a normal rail line in the temperate climate zone is less bisecting habitats. High-speed lines with fences along the tracks are another thing, though the longer tunnel stretches than on highways mean reduced impact.
Interestingly, a problem reported from Sweden is that trains hit a lot of elks who insist to squat on the tracks, presumably because there are less mosquitoes in the sunshine. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
On the same line, somewhere between Bonn and Cologne I think, we once stopped for a while, and then proceeded slowly because of children playing by the tracks. The announcement?
Wir bitten um Ihr Verständnis, und hoffen dass wir keine erwischen.
I would say that the problem is less for rail then cars though, or at least much less human casualties are reported from rail accidents. I guess the engine manages such a collision without much trouble. In the case of cars, the car often hits the elk at the legs, tipping the body so it crashes through the windshield, killing both elk and humans (male elks can weigh up to 700 kg). There has been different attempts to solve this by steering the moose to safer passages. Synthesized wolf urine was used in one large scale experiment, I do not think it worked out though. Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se
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