A British concern for animals killed by cars

Joe Moran teaches cultural history at Liverpool John Moores University. He ponders the sympathy Britons display for animals killed on roads. "All across the country, in a seasonal arc starting in Cornwall in late February and reaching the frozen north in April, toads are crossing roads. In these epic journeys to their spawning grounds, many are crushed by cars or suffer drawn-out deaths trapped in roadside drains. So a very British (or, more specifically, southern English) institution has evolved: the toad patrol, in which volunteers work through wet nights to carry these animals across roads in buckets. Other nationalities do not seem to be burdened by the same duty of care. ... In the US, you can buy roadkill colouring books for children, and the word has taken on a more general meaning as something that is useless or redundant ('I'm just roadkill in the kitchen'). Some Australian restaurants, meanwhile, will allow patrons to bring in their own roadkill to be cooked."

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