The Virginian-Pilot
In Virginia, a car slams into a deer once every 720 seconds. Nationally, the long-legged beasts tangle with an American auto about once every 22 seconds. In a year, the damage is in the billions and more than 200 lie dead. (People, not deer.)
And every year for two decades the carnage has been getting worse. Deer are the deadliest animals in America. The doe-eyed death toll is greater than the butchers’ bill of sharks, poisonous snakes, mountain lions, bears and alligators combined. If Bambi was a dinosaur, he wouldn’t be the peaceful brontosaur or the plant-munching triceratops; he’d be the flesh-shredding Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Want to know who brought this scourge upon us? Your friendly government.
You see, the early settlers had wisely killed off most of the deer before they invented cars. But while the Model-Ts were still erratically trundling along Virginia’s Depression-era dirt roads, state officials clamped down on hunting. We imported deer from 11 states at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Now, we’ve got at least a million of them crawling through every inch of fen, forest and fenced backyard. And as Pilot staff writer Joanne Kimberlin recently detailed, state officials treat the growing pile of corpses, both furry and not, as if it were a little inconvenience they can just fine tune by playing with the hunting rules from year to year. “One million deer is not too many for Virginia,” says deer project supervisor Matt Knox, “But it might be too many deer for the people.”
Well, ha, ha, ha. Tell it to the widows and the orphans, Matt.
Nobody would ever say this about a hurricane or an earthquake, both of which kill fewer Americans than deer most years. We know how to protect people from those disasters, and every year we spend a fortune preparing for the worst. Yet for deer, not so much. We don’t even keep track of the full extent of the destruction because most bumper-buck encounters are minor affairs.
The idea of deadly deer is naturally funny. We get the joke. But somebody somewhere has to start taking this more seriously. In short, one way or the other, Bambi must die.
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I can't believe you printed this.
This is the most rediculous, bloodthirsty pile of deer doo that I've ever read, and I'm ashamed that the Va Pilot would even print it.
I thought this was a respectable paper, but clearly, animals do not know better, humans are supposed to! I live in Isle of Wight County, 363 square miles of beautiful country and I've never, ever had a deer smash into my car. I do not support hunting since that is usually what makes the deer dart across the road to begin with. Would you stick around while some nut chases you with a shotgun?
The deer are part of nature, and they were here longbefore humans were. The sad thing is that most humans forget that we are part of nature too, and we forget to respect it and care for its creatures like we are obligated to.
We need to focus on the aggressive drivers and road rage fools, and leave our wildlife in peace.
Slow news day?
I'm used to seeing fluff news like this out here where nothing significantly newsworthy happens, so it's refreshing to see that it happens all across the state. I do have a novel idea though: if they managed to put cowcatchers on old railroad locamotives so they could hit animals and not de-rail, let's put deer-catchers on the front of everyone's SUV or pick-up so we can plow through nature without hesitation. Then we can drive past all the new development eyesores without having to slow down and look at them, and everyone can keep speeding through life uninterupted.
put more blame on drivers,not deer
I've lived in rural areas for over 60 years and I've watched with interest the new mix of population centers with wildlife. On the rural back road where I live it not unusual to see people come by going 60 to 70 miles an hour during night time hours. At those speeds a driver has no chance of avoiding a collision with any animal or person in the road. Most instances, although not all I've know of, involve people being killed is when they leave the road instead of hitting the deer. Granted, the vehicle will be damaged but it's much safer than trying out the ditch or a nice old sturdy tree. We're told to not run off the road but people will continue to do so as they "just don't want to kill an animal". Maybe they should think a little more of the people in the car with them. Improved driving habits would go a lot farther to solving the problem than trying to eliminate one more of God's beautiful creatures.
Add deer to menace list? I don't think so....
Bambi is just doing what comes natural to him and unfortunately so has man, which has caused this clash of living environments. We have pushed them back, over, under and around. We send men into the woods armed with guns, arrows and beer, and then want to know why the animals are running scared into the streets to escape these folks. Hunting is a natural thing that I just can't get a grip on, but many hunters are not professional or humane. I agree with the other comment, give them a place to roam, put up fences, create a device to put on vehicles that work. If you can hit a deer you could just as easily hit a child that runs into the road and isn't paying attention. Bambi isn't the problem just the escape goat. Get a grip or get off the road.
Add deer to menace list
What a waste of time and money you spent becoming a journalist. The problem is not the government or the hunters. It is greedy people the want to encroach on wildlife habitat just to build something else that we already have too many of. You need to realize that the more we encroach on wildlife the more run ins we will have. The real menace here is people's greed and need to destroy woodlands and wetlands. But by all means let's build another Mall.