Opinion & Comment

Deer In Headlights A Growing Problem In Appalachia

APPALACHIAN NOTEBOOK - Steve Oden

Two days after Christmas and barely a week since the longest night of the year, my truckÕs headlights froze a large whitetail deer in mid-leap across a lonely Appalachian road.

No time to brake, no time to swerve . . . I had no time to do anything except grit my teeth and brace for the crash. The impact of a 3,500-lb. vehicle and a 150-lb. animal makes a sickening crunch. The next image in my brain was of the deer skittering off the pavement like a nine-pin hit by a giant bowling ball, and then the shattered headlights went dark.

Thankfully, the deer had not bounced over the hood and through the windshield, nor had the airbag activated. I pulled to the side of the rustic road to gather my wits and ponder the split-second event that had made me a statistic: one of the over 1.4 million deer-car collisions that occur every year in the U.S.

I am a deer hunter and have been for 35 years. I have venison in the freezer from a hill country whitetail right now. Although several near-misses have occurred, this is the first time IÕve struck one while driving.

Across Appalachian states Ñ and in the Midwest and Northeast Ñ deer populations are exploding and likewise are insurance claims filed by unlucky motorists. According to an insurance industry source, property damage due to deer-car collisions tops $1.1 billion. Human injuries and deaths from these crashes are approaching the 29,000-per-year mark.

The insurance industry is heavy political hitter. No wonder that in several states pressure has been brought to bear on game and fish agencies to liberalize hunting seasons and harvest limits. In Tennessee, for example, a new deer-hunting geographic unit was created last year from counties in middle and western parts of the state where deer numbers are extremely high. Hunters in Unit L were allowed to harvest three deer per day in an effort to reduce the number of does.

In heavily wooded Appalachia and other parts of the eastern U.S., I hope to see state wildlife agencies gradually extend hunting seasons while allowing hunters to harvest more deer in an effort to control populations through management practices before political pressure dictates extermination programs.

A city in Ohio Appalachia is considering opening municipal areas to archery hunters due to a problem with deer over-population. West VirginiaÕs largest airport turned to hunters in an effort to reduce the number of deer around runways.

Outside Appalachia, cities and counties are grappling with how to manage deer herds in suburban areas. In Michigan, for example, October is ÒCar-Deer Crash Safety Awareness Month,Ó heavily promoted by highway safety and law enforcement agencies. In counties and townships on the eastern seaboard, geographic information systems (GIS) are being used to pinpoint human-deer contact areas based on past accidents, land use, topography, vegetation, roads and waterways. The data provides a basis for risk assessment and mitigation projects.

Outdoorsmen who love to hunt deer feel sad to see roadside carcasses by the dozens along stretches of interstate highways and busy rural roads. The number of deer killed by vehicles is only an estimate, but most statisticians concede the actual figure is probably much higher. Using the 1.4-million deer-car accident number Ñ and assuming a deer mortality rate of 80 percent (also probably low) with an average body weight of 120 pounds per animal Ñ over 134 million pounds of meat becomes road kill every year. This waste of a natural resource is a tragic flipside of collisions. Of course, auto owners and insurance companies, looking at damage of $2,000-$8,000 per mishap and the rising toll of human death and injury, arenÕt in the mood to shed tears.

Probably the most ridiculous perspective on the problem comes from an anti-hunting group. CASH (Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting) has jumped on the bandwagon, issuing press releases claiming that the incidence of deer-car collisions is due to hunters in the woods during the fall. This is pure hogwash, but I am amazed that media outlets have promulgated such an inaccuracy and promoted the agenda of a rabid special interest group. Several newspapers, radio stations, and TV chains in Appalachia Ñ where people ought to know better Ñ ran this story last fall.

The simple fact is that buck deer ÒrutÓ in the fall and run all over the country, chasing does that might be entering estrous and ready to mate. Also, as freezing weather kills vegetation on which deer browse, the animals must often travel further Ñ and cross more roads Ñ to find food sources.

As the victim of a deer-car collision, I know the sick feeling of having to view the ruined front of a vehicle, while realizing the animal I hit was dead or dying. In reality, it was pure chance that my truck and the deer occupied the same physical space on a dark roadway at the same moment in time.

Chance, veteran gamblers and physicists agree, is a mathematical equation. ItÕs all in the numbers, unless you believe in fate. The solution to deer-car collisions involve more careful driving habits, especially at dawn and in the evenings, and less restrictive regulations on deer hunting.

Wildlife management practices basically have three goals: more animals, fewer animals, or a reasonable balance aimed at maintaining a population. In the final analysis, hunting is the only proven method of managing deer herds and achieving this balance.