The folks up at UC Davis have a nice innocuous name for a quite deadly phenomenon:

They call it “wildlife-vehicle conflict.”

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On Thursday, the UC Davis Road Ecology Center issued its latest annual state survey on those ”conflicts.” And the San Francisco Bay Area topped the list, coming out smelling like anything but roses.

California’s deadliest highways last year for raccoons, deer, fox and other critters included Interstate 280, Highway 101 in Marin County and several other state highways. Those collisions, say the survey’s authors, translate into big bucks, particularly when it comes to the costs involved on the human side of the equation – car repairs; medical expenses, etc. And, they say, installing fences along the highways could pay for themselves quicker than it takes a bobcat to run across eight lanes of asphalt.

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“We’re seeing an increase in the rate of wildlife-vehicle collisions, and we’re not seeing an increase in our attempt to mitigate the problem,” said Fraser Shilling, co-director of the UC Davis Road Ecology Center. “But this is definitely a problem we can solve. We have the resources and know-how to build solutions that can protect wildlife and drivers.”

The report is based on the work of scores of volunteers who document roadkill incidents by uploading details and photos to the California Roadkill Observation System (CROS), the largest database of its kind in the United States.

Researchers and wildlife advocates hope the data will convince state highway authorities to construct more animal crossings or barriers to reduce future collisions. Some projects already offer potential solutions, like a Highway 17 tunnel being built as a mountain lion corridor in the Santa Cruz Mountains. But ecologists want more.

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“It’s relevant to planning better transportation,” Shilling told this newspaper in 2015 after creating ROS in 2009. “And it’s relevant to protecting wildlife populations.”

Collisions between vehicles and wildlife cost California $276 million in 2016, says the report, which is up about 20 percent from the previous year. Using state data on over 13,000 traffic incidents the report maps stretches of California highways that are hotspots for wildlife-vehicle conflicts. For the report, researchers also mapped the cost per mile of wildlife-vehicle collisions for select highways and estimated the return on investment for installing fencing along those roads to reduce such collisions.

The Bay Area’s Interstate 280, it turns out, is a perennial roadkill hotspot and in 2016 the highway was the state’s worst for collisions with wildlife. The report estimates that building fencing along the highway to prevent wildlife access to the roadway would pay for itself in less than a year with reduced collisions and property damage.

While collisions with wildlife are common throughout the state, they occur most densely in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sierra Nevada foothills, North Coast and parts of the Central and South Coast, all areas where freeways are often hemmed in by forests, rangeland and other undeveloped land.

Here are the Top 10, which account for about a quarter of the statewide impacts of such collisions:

Interstate 280, with 386 collisions over 23 miles. The cost per mile from wildlife-vehicle collisions along this highway is $874,520. The cost of fencing to protect wildlife could pay for itself in about half a year. U.S. Highway 101 in Marin County, with 225 collisions over 28 miles. Cost per mile is $525,009, with fencing paying for itself in less than a year. State Route 13 in the Oakland hills, with 81 collisions over 6.5 miles. Cost per mile is $307,218, with fencing paying for itself in a little over a year. State Route 24, connecting Oakland with Walnut Creek, with 114 collisions over 11 miles. Cost per mile is $233,567, with fencing paying for itself within less than two years. State Route 174, with 75 collisions over 11 miles. Cost per mile is $216,521, with fencing paying for itself within less than two years. Interstate 680, with 221 collisions over 72 miles. Cost per mile is $193,762, with fencing paying for itself within about two years. State Route 9, with 119 collisions over 20 miles. Cost per mile is $151,995, with fencing paying for itself within about 2.5 years. State Route 2 with 33 collisions over 6 miles. Cost per mile is $144,731, with fencing paying for itself within three years. U.S. Highway 101 at the west end of the San Fernando Valley, with 13 collisions over 26 miles. Cost per mile is $137,735, with fencing paying for itself within three years. U.S. Highway 50 in western El Dorado County with 245 collisions over 54 miles. Cost per mile is $118,692, with fencing paying for itself within 3.5 years.

The center also suggests building wildlife corridors, such as underpasses and overpasses, across the hardest-hit highways that allow for safe passage of animals and preventing accidents which can be deadly, as well, for the humans involved in the so-called conflict.

The report notes that it does not cover all wildlife-vehicle collisions in the state, only those reported to the California Highway Patrol. Allstate Insurance Co. estimates there were 23,316 claims for collisions with wildlife in 2015-16, which is three times higher than the rate the report describes. If included, it would increase the total cost to society to $500 million per year.

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For more information about the report, visit the center’s California Roadkill Observation System website.