Unlike the common research-oriented beginning of other Citizen Science projects, Reptile Road Mortality (Taiwan Roadkill Observation Network,
http://www.facebook.com/groups/roadkilled/ ) originated from a Facebook group of concerned citizens created in August 2011. Due to the power of social media networks, our group members come from a variety of locations, academic backgrounds, and do not come from any particular group, association, or academy. Most members of our community are not acquainted with one another. More interestingly, this was not an intentionally planned Citizen Science project. Rather it was gradually established through discussions and consensus among members. The current appointment of main staff that operates the website, our goals, information-collecting SOP, software tools for back-end use, database platform and this particular website, were all achieved step-by-step under cooperation and numerous adjustments and revisions.
The primary mission of Reptile Road Mortality is to set up an eco-friendly path to mitigate roadkill challenges. We have four main tenets guiding our organization. Our overarching goal is to 1. Mitigate Roadkill. The following three goals are developed based on this main tenet: (2. Citizen Science) We aim to popularize national discourse on such environmental issues and civil participation in scientific research. (3. Environmental Education) Additionally, we will encourage citizens to mitigate roadkill as the first step in fostering lifelong ecological interest and conservation action. (4. Cherish Life) Last but not least, we establish the concept that all life and species are valuable and we encourage participants to help collect and send roadkill specimens to our lab for preservation . This allows these animals to be used for future studies, making greater value of the loss of life.
