Bambi vs. Buick
“It’s definitely scary.”
Driving at night through a winding canyon in the rain set the stage for what could have been a terrible accident for Wes Chapman, a freshman majoring in aviation technology at Utah State University, last week.
On his way back to USU through Logan Canyon, Chapman, coming around a turn, was faced with a group of 10 deer in the middle of the road.
“I had to dodge through them,” he said, recalling last week’s experience. “I didn’t have time [to brake].”
Chapman’s experience isn’t unusual for this time of year. As the seasons change and temperatures fall, deer begin to migrate down the mountains in search of a more ample food and water supply. The most active deer migration happens between the beginning of October until about the end of November.
The best defense to avoid a possibly fatal accident – for both the animal the the driver – is to slow down, said Patty Cramer, a USU research associate. For most, this is a simple precaution. If a driver is traveling more than 40 mph and an animal suddenly jumps in front of the vehicle, the driver will not have time to slow down to prevent a collision with the animal, she said.
Cramer, who is working on a larger study involving wildlife and roads, said efforts made from both the human and animal perspective need to be taken into consideration. Many states feature fences along the road to deter deer crossing paths with vehicles, yet this is actually more harmful.
“It’s not good enough to put up a fence and say ‘done,'” Cramer said. “The animals need to move. [By using fences], you may have isolated an animal from its food and water and spelled out a nice, slow death.”
Although deer follow food and water resources, the settlement of Cache Valley towns have made commuting activity more conducive for deer-vehicle collisions. The valley’s towns have been built along the historical deer migration routes, Chris Peterson, a graduate student studying these issues, said in an article posted on the Hard News Café.
“We have basically three highways in this valley and all three of them cut right through migratory routes,” Peterson said in the article. “Anytime you’re driving through one of the canyons, you’re driving through the only habitat the deer have.”
Animals need to come down from the mountains or cross over roads for their survival. Boxed coverts, or the square tunnels under roads, have proven effective at providing animals a safer means to cross busy highways, Cramer said. Efforts should be made to try and get the animals over and under the roads, but preemptive measures should not stop there.
“You don’t just work on the animals, you work on the humans,” she said, adding, “People are a lot easier to work with because they can read signs.”
Being cautious may not always work in every circumstance. While driving home from Beaver Mountain, Kevin Foulger, a sophomore majoring in business, said he was passing First Dam on Highway 89/91 when he noticed two cars pulled off onto the shoulder of the road. Being cautious, Foulger moved into the left lane only to find what had stopped the two cars.
“I was just minding my own business,” he said about the incident that happened around the same time last year, “and I hit a dead deer. I just drove right over top of it.”
Foulger was traveling between 45 and 50 mph and wasn’t able to stop his Subaru before colliding with the animal.
The easiest solution people can make is to slow down when driving through areas a driver may expect to find deer or other large wildlife. Also, if there is one deer, there will be more, Cramer said. Michigan recorded almost 63,000 deer-vehicle collisions in a year, she said, and some residents of Colorado towns won’t travel at night until the season changes and deer migrate to higher elevations.
-kcashton@cc.usu.edu