It was a year ago, when we applied to a call for NGO Block Grant in the framework of Slovenian-Swiss cooperation programme and submitted the project entitled STOPJEŽ (jež = hedgehog) – Traffic and Animals. The Steering Committee had selected four projects from the area of Environment and nature conservation, among which was also STOPJEŽ. Now we have a year and a half to carry out the project – with or without you, it is your choice.

Shortly about the project

In different ways we will try to remind our drivers, from beginners to professional drivers, that they are not alone on the road. There are also animals. Not because they would like to walk on the road or cause traffic chaos and confuse drivers. Animals are on the road, because there they can find food or the road crosses their settled trails. Planners of road infrastructure usually do not consider enough animal needs. We will show that animal victims are not only those animals that in a collision with a vehicle land together with a windshield in driver’s lap, damaging both, a car and a driver, and ending up in a truck of Veterinary Hygiene Service, while driver is taken away in the ambulance. And if driver will be lucky, his damage will be covered by insurance company.

Among traffic victims are also smaller creatures; frogs and toads, hedgehogs and squirrels, otters, martens and badgers, birds... Most of the times at these collisions cars are not damaged and drivers do not suffer any injuries. Often a driver does not even notice a collision. Unnoticeably animals are disappearing without even becoming a statistic. From a 3-dimensional living being they slide into a lifeless 2-dimensional stain that tyres erase it in a few days.

What are we planning?

Original messages and promotional materials will be used to call drivers’ conscience and warn them of animals on road. We will prepare safety vests and reflective bands with STOPJEŽ logotype, a brochure, a poster and recognizable stickers for all young drivers in driving schools. With a short, concise message we will address listeners of radio traffic news. As the traffic safety of the animals is also related to the safety of children and their future behaviour in traffic, we are preparing colouring book and suitable articles for all age groups in magazines Ciciban, Cicido, PIL, Moj planet...

The project also includes actions on a field and collecting data on collisions with animals. For this reason we are arranging a special web page with a report form. Special attention (also in the magazine Lovec) will be give to hunters, who are the most reliable allies on a field. One of the project results will be a handbook for planners of transport infrastructure. We strongly count on at least moral support of the Ministry of Transport and bodies affiliated to the ministry.

How can you support the project and add to its recognition?

Since Slovenia has a very rich species biodiversity we decided to point it out with our project STOPJEŽ. Although a little hedgehog was chosen as a symbol of all animals threatened by traffic, there are several other species dying under wheels. Therefore a well-known Slovenian illustrator and receiver of award of Prešeren Fund, Lila Prap, who designed logotype of the project, already continues with the series of the animals: after a hedgehog there is a hare, then an otter, a badger and an owl as a representative of birds, and many others. How many animals will be presented on a symbolic “pedestrian crossing”, warning that they are threatened by traffic, depends on you, sponsors. Project funds are not sufficient to represent all threatened animals, let alone for their use in various applications. We do not want to stop warning of animal victims in traffic after the project ends – on the contrary, the project is just the beginning of our efforts, which we would like to continue and upgrade with your help.

We suggest you to select and “adopt” a species from the gallery STOPŽIVALI or you choose your one species, that the artist will portray as a “STOPANIMAL” on a pedestrian crossing. You can also choose from variety of products for raising awareness in traffic, on which we can print your selected animal and your logo. For price information, please, contact. You can use products for your colleagues or as thoughtful business gifts that will call user’s attention to the problem of animals in traffic. Hurry up, some animals are already taken!

Or you can simply join us with a donation: we will print more brochures, more posters, add new products for traffic safety, reach more drivers and especially future drivers – and more firmly reduce the number of animal victims. All this can be done with your help. Believe me, it is worth it.

What can you gain with the collaboration?

Above all; a good, clever and proper promotion can be carried out that cannot be compared with usual ads in media. We will publish on the project site, which company adopted which animal. Besides this, you will prove your organization as socially responsible, since your money, intended for a promotion, will be invested in a socially useful activity: for a greater safety on roads – for humans and animals. Each life is precious, human and animal.

Readers will read about you in newspapers, youngster in youth magazines, everyone together on our website. Listeners will the message, that you will support, hear on a radio, see on television and much more. You will give a great pleasure to children with new stickers of animals that will be drawn by popular Lila Prap. And children will warn their parents-drivers to pay attention to animals on the road. It is not animals’ fault. They just silently die on our roads, every year more. This we can change together.

Which animal did you choose? Let us know as soon as possible!