I live near a veterans cemetery and adjacent park that are alongside the river. The deer herd there is densely numerous. A local pastime is driving through the cemetery near sundown to see the deer. Many people throw out bread, feed corn, entire ears of corn, carrots, apples, doritoes chips and such despite prohibitions against doing so. The local deer tourists object to having the herd thinned. But each year a dozen or more deer wander onto the interstate alongside the cemetery and get hit. Last week there was a dead hit doe in the middle of the long span of the interstate bridge over the river.
Here in our Indiana state park that is over run with deer, the parks department decided to bring in some Patriots with their muskets to thin out the herd. That didn’t work–the Patriots spent their whole time trying to deflate the musket balls and had to be suspended from the park.
you can get deer alert whistles for less than $10. I have no idea how well they work, but there are testimonials on amazon.
The overpopulation of deer (and now bear) is a serious problem. We let nature take its course and they starve, or we introduce a predator, and the predator eats your pets and threatens your kid, or we kill off the deer at our own peril with cars (or preferably trucks and SUV’s) or we let hunters thin the herds so none of this happens. I’m not a hunter but that’s the plan I like.
Moose are a whole ‘nother bit of hurt as Mike points out! I don’t know if they are good eatin’ but I don’t want to hit one with any vehicle short of a semi-tractor.
Deer Whistles? I put them on both my cars after the last encounter with a deer standing in the middle of the road. I know they don’t work but haven’t had a close call with a deer since. Makes me feel a little better though. I can’t drive 40 mph on the highway for hundreds of miles.
Seen plenty but never hit one… yet.
I’m more worried about Donna being on the road than I am about the deer. Of the two, the deer seem to have more sense.
I love the fact that the hosts did not yell or call her names, etc.
Also notice the caller did not use language like “oz aint gots no idears why day be hi tailn cross the hiway”.
Um, it was a fake call folks.
…and not a very good performance. Phil Hendrie was the master of (modern) theater radio. He accepted calls only from listeners that were unaware it was satire and allowed the callers to engage in argument with the “guest”.
I remember reading this some time ago on NEWS of the WEIRD. Ignorance can be cured in most cases by education. I don’t have much hope for this one. The video/audio may have been staged but the report I read was actually reported to the state DOT. I live in deer country but have never hit one. I was on a winding gravel road when I was presented with 5 deer standing in the middle of it. I was able to safely stop and they refused to move. I finally hit the horn and they instantly disappeared. Years later I faced the same situation on a winding paved road with 4 deer and the horn still worked. There were no deer crossing signs in both incidents.
MikeInNH: Years ago we were traversing Lo Lo pass in Montana a moose decided to cross the highway. It was only medium size and we were able to stop. It was quite impressive. No moose crossing sign. In Oregon we have large elk and on the Eastern side wild horses. Those could ruin your day.
I’ve seen a couple Moose accidents aftermath…In both cases the driver was killed…One vehicle was a full size GMC pickup…the other - we had no idea. Some small compact. The Moose walked away in that one. The GMC pickup killed the Moose.
My house backs up to a state park. The park is a narrow band of land on both sides of a river and extends for several miles. There are lots of deer in it, of course. The state never allowed hunting in the park until recently. There used to be many herds of deer crossing the road(s) at dawn and dusk, and a lot of accidents. One of my neighbors looked out back one night and counted 22 deer grazing in his back yard, including one buck on his deck. Because the park is so narrow, hunting is problematic. The state decided to have a very limited hunting season ( a couple-a-three days) a year when expert bow hunters are allowed to come in and thin the herds. Auto/deer accidents are down and I don’t see nearly as many deer as I used to during my 0:dark:30 commute.
I was out in my back yard with the weed whacker one evening and looked up and there was Bambi and his mommy standing there looking at me about 20 feet away. We stared at each other a while and finally they decided to move on. Now I’m afraid of running into one with the riding mower.
In my area…I’d be afraid of some idiot hunter shooting me because he sees the deer and doesn’t see me or my house. Unfortunately that happens too often here in NH
they are dangerous and costly
I’m told that my state’s insurance companies petitioned the state to allow the taking of more deer, especially does, during the hunting season. It’s working. The population is down, but not far enough. I can remember when seeing a deer was a real oddity. I hit one three years ago next month. I don’t recall if she was crossing in an appointed zone. She would probably have thought the sign meant there was a John Deer dealership nearby anyway. As I’ve said before, deer are so stupid that your insurance considers a deer hit an act of God. They pay off of your comprehensive coverage.
The state could save a lot of money by posting a deer crossing sign on every road entering the state, thereby declaring the whole thing a massive deer crossing. That would not only save money on signs, but it would also keep the deer from being confused as to where they should cross…
November is the peak month due to their mating season. They really get stupid when they have sex on their simple minds. The graph will spike by about about ten times next month. I’ve all but quit riding a motorcycle after 6:00, soon to be 5:00 with the demise of Daylight Saving Time early Sunday morning.
This is five years old, put still pertinent: http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/deer-car-collisions-state-hit-deer-driving/story?id=11826266
And yes, the radio spot is old. We’ve discussed it here before. http://community.cartalk.com/discussion/2288123/deer-crossing-donna/p1
Here is snopes take on the Donna call and others of the same genre’. Apparently the radio jocks have used Donna for other gags.
They really get stupid when they have sex on their simple minds.
Just like people…
;-]
I was visiting my storage unit which is inside my semi rural population 9,000 city limits. When I was leaving there were 2 small blacktail deer less than 100 feet away that just looked at my car then resumed grazing.