How many of us read “Bambi” as a child or to our children? Seriously, do we really want to read our kid one of their first books where the mother dies. Of course, MAN is the bad guy here, shooting Bambi’s mother. I guess that came before there were cars.
There are 1.5 million car/deer collisions a year. Given the deer population in the Berkshires, one might think they all happened here. No, that is a world-wide number. I’m glad someone is keeping count. My husband and I collided recently with a deer. The deer bounced off the side of the car and then got up and ran away: 1 point for the deer and 1 dent for the car. In my family that is considered a pure miss. My brother has hit two deer on his travels north to visit us and my mother hit one. Each required major bodywork (on the cars, not the people). But did you know that nationally, deer/car collisions cause 175 fatalities and 10,000 injuries and $1 billion in insured losses annually? Statistics again thanks to the U.S. Deer/Car group. And 67 percent of those accidents are caused by the deer.
One day when I was living on the West Coast, I received a call from my mother in Philadelphia to tell me that there was a deer “stuck under her car.” She was in the center of Philadelphia, a serious-sized city. What was a deer doing there and why under her car?
“Mom, are you OK?” “Yes.” “Is the deer OK? “ “I did not take its pulse.” “How did it get under your car?” “It ran there.” “Why are you calling me 3000 miles away instead of the police?” “Well, I assumed if a 90-year-old woman calls the police and says a deer is stuck under her car they would blame me.”
What do deer do for us? Well, they secure a 11.8-billion-dollar industry in licenses, gear, travel, housing and the rest. Hunting is a big game—even for smaller game. They eat our flowers, our leaves, our planted vegetables. And while some people eat deer or venison, utilize the skin for shoes, even the antlers for knife handles, we do not eat enough deer to cause a dent in their population. In 2020, the last year the statistics were gathered, in Massachusetts 14,331 deer were “harvested.” (What a lovely way to say they were killed). That is a small part of the 95,000 deer that populate this state. So, what are the rest of the deer doing besides spreading rabies, bovine tuberculosis, and being the primary carrier of ticks that cause Lyme disease? Actually, the ticks drop off of deer onto mice, and who in the Berkshires is free of a mouse in the house? I researched to see if deer helped the ecosystem. If you believe in an “eat or be eaten” world, then yes. They become food for larger predators like wolves, cougars, bobcats (Berkshire bobcats, or catamounts seem a little smaller than deer). But teeth are teeth and raw deer must be mighty tasty to the local bobcats.
Instead of Roe v. Wade, this is Doe v. Man. We need deer birth control. My apologies to the Republican congresspeople, but this is a serious issue. It is only a matter of time until the deer outnumber the rest of us. I am all for gun control, but not when it comes to deer and deer only.
Sorry, Bambi but if it’s you versus me, I plan to win. You have made driving in The Berkshires a serious hazard.
Deer/car accident statistics for 2022, thanks to PetKeen
- About 1.5 million motor vehicle accidents in the U.S. are caused by deer each year.
- Every year, more than one million deer get hit by cars.
- Deer cause over $1 billion in property damage.
- Collisions with deer cause 200 human fatalities each year.
- There is a 1 in 116 chance of hitting a deer with a car in the United States.
- 67 percent of animal collisions are caused by deer.
- The most common time of day when deer collisions happen is between 6pm–9pm.
- When there is a full moon, you are more likely to hit a deer.
- November sees the highest rate of deer collisions.
- Virginia has the most extended deer hunting season of all the states.
- West Virginia has the highest car insurance claims for collisions with an animal.
- Texas has the highest number of white-tailed deer in the nation, with over 4 million.
- 24.1 percent of South Dakota residents are registered hunters.
- There is an estimation of 33.5 million deer in the United States.
- There are six species of true deer in North America, and the most common species is the white-tailed deer.
