Student Wins Contest With EcoRoute Roadkill Map
Aaryan Ghorpade took first place in the 16 to 18 age group of the 2024 A Voice for Animals contest for his free online wildlife collision mapping platform.
Updated on Nov. 6, 2026 in Wildlife
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Aaryan Ghorpade won first place in the 16 to 18 age group of the 2024 A Voice for Animals contest, organized by the Animal Welfare Institute and Humane Education Network. He was recognized for developing EcoRoute, a free online platform for mapping roadkill.
Why it matters
Wildlife-vehicle collisions cause major property damage and injuries to people, and state agencies find it difficult to identify dangerous road areas because reports are collected through different systems. EcoRoute aims to consolidate those reports into a single view of high-risk areas.
The first-place prize in the 16 to 18 age category is $600, awarded in the 2024 competition. Wildlife and vehicle collisions cause more than one million animal deaths every day across the United States, and the source does not report how much of that total EcoRoute has documented so far.
The players
Aaryan Ghorpade
Ghorpade is a student who developed the EcoRoute roadkill mapping platform and won first place in the 16 to 18 age group of the 2024 contest.
Animal Welfare Institute
The Animal Welfare Institute is a nonprofit organization that works to reduce animal suffering and co-organizes the A Voice for Animals contest.
Humane Education Network
The Humane Education Network is an organization focused on teaching humane values and co-organizes the A Voice for Animals contest.
The details
EcoRoute gathers reports of wildlife collisions from the public and volunteers, then uses them to build heat maps showing where animals regularly attempt to cross roads. Ghorpade plans to revise the platform's data collection and processing systems and to test it on North Carolina roads with regional wildlife protection groups.
Timeline
2024: Ghorpade wins first place in the 16 to 18 age group of the A Voice for Animals contest.
Following the competition win: Ghorpade plans to improve EcoRoute and begin testing it on North Carolina roads.
Wildlife Watch
Student-led entries in the A Voice for Animals contest have increasingly targeted road and building hazards for wildlife, following the contest's recognition of bird window collision and marine habitat projects in 2024. Ghorpade's EcoRoute extends that pattern by turning scattered public reports into a shared map for transportation planners.
North Carolina drivers may eventually benefit from road-specific wildlife collision data if EcoRoute's planned testing expands into a usable state resource. The platform is free and accepts public sightings, so residents can contribute reports as the project develops.
The takeaway
Public reporting can fill gaps that formal monitoring leaves behind, and free tools make participation easier for ordinary drivers. Readers who see wildlife near roads can help by logging sightings where platforms like EcoRoute accept them.
What happens next
Ghorpade plans to test EcoRoute on North Carolina roads with regional wildlife protection groups, though the source gives no date for that work.
Further reading
Explore more in the Wildlife section for related coverage of animal conservation and road safety.
Source note: This article includes information reported by The Times of India.
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