The Czech Republic is a Central European country with an area of 78,867 km2 and ten million inhabitants. The density of road and rail networks is high, but the density of motorways is still lower than in Western Europe. Therefore, an increase of another 30% is planned. The rail network is outdated, and a new extensive high-speed rail plan is being prepared. The power line network is also dense, but in connection with the development of renewable energy sources, the distribution and transmission system is to be strengthened.
A study conducted in previous years has shown that a large number of animals die due to collisions with cars each year. More than 50 thousand roe deer, 550 thousand hares and 350 thousand hedgehogs are killed on roads every year. The fragmentation of habitats by transport infrastructure has even stronger impacts. Although isolated populations survive many years after construction, their long-term existence is threatened. The European moose is an example of a species that will probably become extinct in the Czech Republic as a result of fragmentation in the coming years.
A complex system of migration corridors of large carnivores was defined to prevent habitat fragmentation. The primary task was to ensure the protection of migration corridors in spatial planning, which was achieved in previous years. Currently, the migration corridors are protected against buildings, fencing and other interventions that can limit animal migration. To date, 25 large green bridges have been built in places where migration corridors are crossed by highways. Other large green bridges are proposed on newly planned highways. The use by animals and the effectiveness of these measures are now being verified. Attention is also paid to culverts and bridges over waterways - which are adapted to serve as fauna passages. Special attention has long been devoted to the otter. Road mortality has been monitored for a long time in this species, critical places of frequent mortality are identified and gradually made passable. Similarly, road mortality is monitored for other protected species such as large carnivores, moose, beaver, endangered reptiles, amphibians, and bats.
Protection of birds on power lines has been given attention in the Czech Republic since the 1980s. According to the law, only bird-safe structures avoiding electrocution can be used for building new power lines and reconstruction of existing ones in the Czech Republic since 1992. Despite this, thousands of birds die due to electrocution and collision with the wires every year. The reason was the lack of knowledge about which structures are really safe and where, on the contrary, bird mortality occurs. For this reason, an extensive study on bird mortality has been initiated in the Czech Republic in recent years. During this study, about 76,000 power poles and 6,400 km of power lines (about 10% of the country's total) were inspected. The aim of the study was to identify types of poles which are dangerous for birds from the point of electrocution and also the number of birds dying on individual types of poles. Collected data show that at least 117,000 birds die due to electrocution and collision with wires in the Czech Republic every year. Based on this study, new guidelines for protecting birds from electrocution and collisions were prepared as a mandatory basis for all new buildings. However, there are still thousands of old structures that are fatally dangerous for birds throughout the landscape and reaching a complete solution to the problem in the Czech Republic may take another 10 - 20 years.