Killer Deer

[deerefan]

Just a friendly reminder to my friends here at TBN...please look a little beyond the headlights and little closer at the shoulders of roads...the deer are really active here now. We lost a school board member, a good man, to an accident where he struck a deer, causing him to lose control and flip his vehicle. He was ejected (no seat belt) and died at the scene. Sometimes these type of accidents are unavoidable, but please be careful and buckle up.

 

[SkyPup]

I was on the way to work this morning on my motorcycle going about 60 mph on a rural two lane road prior to the sunrise. As I was coming up on a long sweeping corner I saw something dark on the side of the roadway up ahead about 300 yards in the high beams, standing in grass. Hit the brakes and slowed to about 15mph to see a nice 4 point buck about two feet off the edge of the roadway. Knowing no to keep my retinas on his, I looked around as four more deer came bounding out of the woods across the road right in front of me as he too skeedaddled away.

Last week in a similar situation, a 2,000 pound bull was standing completely straddling the road before the sun came up.

I didn't hit them and I hope no one else did either......

But one of my greatest worries is someone in a car or truck swerving to miss a deer or cow and coming into my lane head-on at high speed.... so I try to keep an eye out for that too. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[BB_TX]

Here is some <font color="blue"> interesting reading </font> about auto/deer accidents. Estimated 1.5 million collisions and 150 human deaths per year.

 

[DrRod]

Skypup raises a good point -- the follow-on deer. When you see one cross the road, always assume there will be more following. So wait a moment before moving on.

 

[SkyPup]

When you see one, no matter where it is, there are more than the one which you see.

Beware of what you do not see, it's what you don't see that will get you. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[frank_f15]

will Really get bad here in western NY with the drastic change in weather last night, the bucks going in Rut and the opening of Deer seson on Saturday, they will be running all over the place.Best all should be careful

 

[dmccarty]

We have lots of the four legged wood rats at my house. There is a herd of 5-7 that hang around the first 1/4 mile of road around our house. I see them at least once a day when I leave or come home. At least one or two more herds has I get to the main road. I ALWAYS watch for them. You see one and there are usually more waiting to cross the road.

One day I drove by and they did not leave the road. I could have rolled down the window and shot one or two of them from no farther away that 12 feet.

This morning the weather caused the windows to fog up. I got a phone call after I was at work from the wifey. Our dippy neighbor, everyone has to have at least one, pulled out of her driveway, they never look to the right since there are only five houses that way, and proceeded to hit another neighbors truck. The ding bat could not see, if she had looked since the window was fogged up. What are the odds that ding bat would pull out of the driveway when one of 11 cars that live past her would drive by? She managed it. She has a BMW so it should cost her a good bit of money to fix.

Deer and Ding Bats. Watch out its dangerous out there! /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Later,
Dan

 

[LBrown59]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Here is some <font color="blue"> interesting reading </font> about auto/deer accidents. Estimated 1.5 million collisions and 150 human deaths per year. )</font>=======
-------------------------- <font color="red">-----------------</font>
The problem is thre are way way way to many deer.

Do deer whistles work?

 

[LBrown59]

A young girl we know hit a deer one dark night several years ago.
The car rolled over and down an enbankment where it was very hard to see from the road.
Don't know how long she was trapped in the car before some body finally spotted it.
They found her hanging upside down in her seat belt.

Severed her spinal cord so she's confined to a wheel chair.
She must have been about 21 at the time and is now in her mid to late twenties.

 

[beenthere]

I have had my share of deer hits, but I don't brake hard and I don't swerve to miss them. I brake, blow the horn, and keep on a straight path. Keeping the car going in a straight line is better than losing it in the ditch or rolling it over.

I have found over the years, that deer act and do strange things when in the headlights. Seems they turn to run, but then maybe dart back. I think it is because they see their shadow from the headlights and that frightens them so they don't want to run in that direction (which is straight away from the car that initially spooked them). So, I have made a habit to honk the horn in frequent short bursts and usually the deer will run away from that noise, even though they see the 'frightening' shadow (have thought about turning the headlights off too, but that doesn't make sense for driving /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif ). The horn trick doesn't work every time, but certainly has jump-started a lot of deer to turn and run out of my path. During rut, some bucks don't give a hoot about anything else, and nothing will change their course of direction. They are charged and ......... you know. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

(and I wear my seat belt, as the school board member should have been) /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[beenthere]

Daren
I'd encourage you to read more about CWD and not pass on such hype as 'avoiding the blood' of a suspected CWD deer. Simply not true.
CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease) has only been found in the cervids (deer, elk) and never yet found to be transferred to any other animal or human. We have it in Wisconsin, and it has been known to exist for many years out west. I'm of the mind that its been around for years and we are just discovering because we are looking for it. While I don't eat the venison of a deer that has tested positive to have CWD, I don't believe there is any harm to humans to eat that venison. Not recommended to eat the brains or the lymph nodes, and some of the organs. Certainly not a risk to catch it from the blood.
More info here
CWD info

 

[PacersDad]

I have had better luck using the horn and flashing the lights while slowing. You can't swerve or lockup the brakes. I found this to work in the Adirondack Park of NY (when people were feeding the deer so you get a mad rush of deer running for dinner) and in coastal NC where deer and bear get "trapped" by roadside canals.

 

[Darren]

Wearing latex gloves is a common recommendation when cutting up a deer. While some things haven't been proven, they haven't been disproven either. CWD has been transmitted between deer and elk when both were kept in the same facility albeit at different times. The point is that there appears to be an indirect method of transmission rather than direct animal to animal contact. That's one of the reasons soil is being studied as a vector.

There also appears to be a genetic factor that affects an individual's susceptibility to CJD. There's much more info out there than that put out by the game folks in the various states.

The article in one of the hunting/fishing magazines a few years ago wasn't reassuring because it described the possible transmission of CWD between species. If it can cross like that, it opens up other possibilities.

http://www.fieldandstream.com/fieldstream/columnists/conservation/article/0,13199,356809,00.html

 

[BB_TX]

<font color="blue"> Do deer whistles work? </font>
Many of the cars and trucks in the area of TX where we hunt have them on the front bumpers. The land owner where we hunt has them on both his and his wifes vehicles. Both of them have hit deer in the past, but not since putting on the whistles. Coincidence? Don't know. But <font color="blue"> this guy </font> claims from a purely theoretical view that they would not work. We were there hunting last weekend and lost count of the number of deer laying on the side of the road.

 

[SkyPup]

I always wear latex gloves when dismembering deer due to the possible prion contamination, same with wild boar to prevent brucellosis orchitis. Brucella suis is super bad news in humans as are all the various serovars of leptosporosis from deer or swine. Brucella and Lepto are endemic in both deer and swine.

 

[billbill1]

In a rain storm, I got 2 deer with one Dodge Neon. Took out the windshield and the whole passengers side of the car. After getting the car fixed, the wife hit a buck and did almost the exact damage again. The extra permits and extended seasons in Kansas has lowered the population in the area where I live, I don't see nearly as many as 5 years ago. They're still around but not as visable. Now if they would do the same with the turkeys, there's tons of them.