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Deer Impacts

my bet is somebody's freezer is getting filled. :eat

If it was some backwoods guy harvesting a deer for the family, it's not so bad. There will always be the folks that will work like a dog to not hold a job and find any other means of putting food on the table. It's a fact of life in the country.

However, when you find it's a guy with a decent house and vehicle that just wants some hind quarters for his next keg party, that's a different story. Of course, I've had those same folks tell me that they work hard to support the deer herd by sitting fires to stimulate growth of underbrush. It just too bad, that they're burning my trees.
 
I'm also in upstate ny and share the concern about deer. Two strikes in my cars and several close calls on the bikes. One thing that I try to be mindful of is the visibility off to the sides of the road. If there's brush or grass that's anything more than two or three feet tall, and it's growing close to the road then there's a better chance it could hide a small deer. If there's no brush or it's mowed below that height for say 50-100 yards on either side then your odds are much better IMO. With a wide expanse of open fields on both sides that are cut low...let 'er rip (within reason of course). But if there's forest line only a few feet from the roadside?... better slow it down and be extra alert. This is also why I like late fall, winter, and early spring riding so much. Despite there being more deer there's also less foliage to conceal them.
 
Why is it . . . . one goes . . . . they all go.

They are herd animals....We've probably got a dozen living on our property. I see them
every night. Unfortunately they may be getting more used to me. I have two very bright
running lights to spot their beady little eyes....

Mac

BTW, if you're feeding the birds, you could be feeding the deer as well....
 
I don't live in deer country, but did hit one just south of Cody, Wyoming in 2010 about 7:30 am. Wasn't going through the woods, so I thought it would be alright. Guess again! Got lucky, as there was no serious damage to me or the bike.
 
I don't see why we don't just increase the amount of hunting permits and thin the herd. There has been an explosion of the deer population in the last 20 years.
Why spend money building "underpasses", bridges, ect for deer.
Just thin them out.

Ken

Too many pacifist suburbanites think it's cruel to kill Bambi for sport and can't imagine how anyone could do such a thing. :fight But you sure gotta bet that they don't appreciate them eating the landscape plants and redecorating the SUV through physics. Course, these are the same kind of folks that think milk gets mixed in the back of the store from powder and that beef packages itself for convenient grilling. :whistle
 
Hunting seasons should definitely be open much more of the year and with much higher limits in many places. We've got way too many rats out there and they're (especially in upstate NY where corn and apples are high in their diet) good eating.

Here in NC, limits have been 2 a day and 5 on a license- and you can buy multiple licenses.
Even with that we can't keep populations from growing. I used to hunt with a club averaging 11 kills per season per hunter- 550 total- and we didn't even dent the deer on the approx 30,000 acres we hunted.

NY had about 250,000 deer in the whole state when its current game laws were passed and now certainly has close to 2 million or more..
What it needs is a revamp to encourage cullng (no doe permits, for example- just a 2 or 3 per day limit, changes to bowhunting and gun laws), especially around suburbs where accident rates are high. I moved away from NY (just outside Buffalo) in 1983 but even then we were seeing big increases in deer hits in suburbs and its gotten much worse since.

The objections of bambi huggers should be squashed or ignored and replaced with better control practices. We're in no danger of a shortage of deer- they breed faster than fish and nearly as fast as squirrels. And they make much better Italian sausage and burgers..
 
Hunting seasons should definitely be open much more of the year and with much higher limits in many places. We've got way too many rats out there and they're (especially in upstate NY where corn and apples are high in their diet) good eating.

Here in NC, limits have been 2 a day and 5 on a license- and you can buy multiple licenses.
Even with that we can't keep populations from growing. I used to hunt with a club averaging 11 kills per season per hunter- 550 total- and we didn't even dent the deer on the approx 30,000 acres we hunted.

NY had about 250,000 deer in the whole state when its current game laws were passed and now certainly has close to 2 million or more..
What it needs is a revamp to encourage cullng (no doe permits, for example- just a 2 or 3 per day limit, changes to bowhunting and gun laws), especially around suburbs where accident rates are high. I moved away from NY (just outside Buffalo) in 1983 but even then we were seeing big increases in deer hits in suburbs and its gotten much worse since.

The objections of bambi huggers should be squashed or ignored and replaced with better control practices. We're in no danger of a shortage of deer- they breed faster than fish and nearly as fast as squirrels. And they make much better Italian sausage and burgers..

Just curious how you (or any hunter) would utilize 11 deer in one year. Seems like that would make for an all venison diet.

I suspect one reason for the huge increase in the number of deer is a corresponding reduction in the number of deer hunters. There are certainly far fewer hunters in British Columbia than a generation ago.

My suggestion would be to legalize market hunting, perhaps ONLY for does. That would certainly reduce the number of deer while leaving the trophy bucks for the sport hunters. Deer that are properly cleaned, hung and butchered are indeed a taste treat. I bet non-hunting motorcyclists at least would be delighted to buy venison at the grocery store. Not sure how this would go over with the general populace.
 
Too many pacifist suburbanites think it's cruel to kill Bambi for sport and can't imagine how anyone could do such a thing. :fight But you sure gotta bet that they don't appreciate them eating the landscape plants and redecorating the SUV through physics. Course, these are the same kind of folks that think milk gets mixed in the back of the store from powder and that beef packages itself for convenient grilling. :whistle

In my experience, the only folks calling for lower tag limits are the hunters. If you have a picture of a bambi hugger send it my way. I'd like to know what they look like.

However, I have met suburbanites that don't like having bullet holes in their houses and cars.
 
In my experience, the only folks calling for lower tag limits are the hunters. If you have a picture of a bambi hugger send it my way. I'd like to know what they look like.

However, I have met suburbanites that don't like having bullet holes in their houses and cars.

Not saying we should allow hunting inside the beltway :stick, but it's the mentality that hurts every stakeholder, including the horned rats.

In MN, the DNR has sometimes called the NG to cull inside the metro to reduce the herd in Mississippi river bottom, Fort Snelling area. Meat gets donated to prisons and food shelves.

Likewise in northern MN there are two counties with a 100% cull due to bovine TB. A friend of ours goes up for a pickup load of frozen carcasses every year and the whole neighborhood comes out for a butchering/grinding party. Most folk leave with 35lb to freeze and there are still a lot of packages to share with others who need.
 
Not saying we should allow hunting inside the beltway :stick, but it's the mentality that hurts every stakeholder, including the horned rats.

In MN, the DNR has sometimes called the NG to cull inside the metro to reduce the herd in Mississippi river bottom, Fort Snelling area. Meat gets donated to prisons and food shelves.

Likewise in northern MN there are two counties with a 100% cull due to bovine TB. A friend of ours goes up for a pickup load of frozen carcasses every year and the whole neighborhood comes out for a butchering/grinding party. Most folk leave with 35lb to freeze and there are still a lot of packages to share with others who need.

What mentality?

Deer herd management in my area is part of a tourist / recreation industry. The hunters want deer in specific locations. Some hunters want deer of a specific size. In order to do that, the public pressure is to expand the herd. Culling the herd or donating the meat to prisons/charities would likely suffer severe public backlash from the hunters.

Apparently, it's not a hobby, it's a lifestyle.
 
Yesterday at 9:30 AM while driving my F150 4WD of Hwy 378 west of McCormick, S.C. a doe streaked accross the road in front of me, slammed broadside into an oncomming car. The impact knocked her back into my lane, I straddled her while running about 55 MPH (no time to slow). I pulled of the road at Baker Creek SP to check for damage to my truck. Bent license plate holder, thats all. While stopped 7 bikers on cruisers passed me. My GS was garaged a 100 miles away. I wonder if BMW could make a bike FORD TOUGH?

Not my time nor theirs.
Sam
 
Yesterday at 9:30 AM while driving my F150 4WD of Hwy 378 west of McCormick, S.C. a doe streaked accross the road in front of me, slammed broadside into an oncomming car. The impact knocked her back into my lane, I straddled her while running about 55 MPH (no time to slow). I pulled of the road at Baker Creek SP to check for damage to my truck. Bent license plate holder, thats all. While stopped 7 bikers on cruisers passed me. My GS was garaged a 100 miles away. I wonder if BMW could make a bike FORD TOUGH?

Not my time nor theirs.
Sam

I know a doe can leave a nice dent in the hood of a 3-series.............and still walk away quite nicely
 
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A Man!

I don't see why we don't just increase the amount of hunting permits and thin the herd. There has been an explosion of the deer population in the last 20 years.
Why spend money building "underpasses", bridges, ect for deer.
Just thin them out.

Ken

When I was a young man in the 50's, if anyone mentioned deer around here (upstate SC) in the morning, then the deer was on the table by supper time! They were not trouble on the roads!
 
Jack Riepe's blog

Go take a look at Jack's most recent entry on Twisted Roads. Seems the hurricane was pelting his house with "rats on stilts" during the peak of the storm. Seems an unusual way to have a deer impact, but not without it's own amusement.
 
My take on deer is slow down when your vision limited or gun it. If you gun it, you may win with physics. If you slow down when your sight distance is limited, you might be able to react before you hit one. Ironically, it is when you don't expect to see a deer that they jump out. So, deer may be telepathic. I expect to hit a deer every night I ride. So far, the mind reading deer sense my fear and stay out of my way. On two way roads with a lot of trees, I get really nervous at night. If deer are telepathic They will hear my nervousness miles away. But, the population of deer is growing. For example that cornell paper mentioned that there were only 20,000 deer in NY state 1900. In 1990 we had wolves and they ate the weak deer while hunters ate the big ones. The problem is deer do not have enough predators, and there population is growing. So, get a shotgun or bow and hunting license. Killing deer can save a riders life. Killing deer will also ensure they fear people and stay away from the road.
 
Given the assumption that this comment was made in jest, I would also adhere to the position that "you may win with physics" is a short-sighted thought. Yes, there have been instances of two-wheel encounters with the hooved ruminant menace wherein the mechanical side of the equation came out on top. The most memorable one that I personally know of was when a ride leader on a Kymco scooter hammered a deer on a demo ride, and came out upright with only a broken leg. However, the percentage of these "successful" encounters are rare, and I suggest if you just "go for it" in deer country then you are setting yourself up for an unwanted outcome. On the other hand, if anyone does intend to test the laws of physics, please do us a favor. Make sure your GoPro camera is running at all times. We can't wait to see the show... :)
 
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My take on deer is slow down when your vision limited or gun it. If you gun it, you may win with physics. If you slow down when your sight distance is limited, you might be able to react before you hit one. Ironically, it is when you don't expect to see a deer that they jump out. So, deer may be telepathic. I expect to hit a deer every night I ride. So far, the mind reading deer sense my fear and stay out of my way. On two way roads with a lot of trees, I get really nervous at night. If deer are telepathic They will hear my nervousness miles away. But, the population of deer is growing. For example that cornell paper mentioned that there were only 20,000 deer in NY state 1900. In 1990 we had wolves and they ate the weak deer while hunters ate the big ones. The problem is deer do not have enough predators, and there population is growing. So, get a shotgun or bow and hunting license. Killing deer can save a riders life. Killing deer will also ensure they fear people and stay away from the road.

What about your garden and shrubbery? That's all pretty tasty for Bambi, Thumper and friends. Of course, we all like to have some green space around us, so those cute suburb farms have to be planted with something that Bambi & Co. don't like to eat.

What 1900 had that we don't have today is subsistence farmers and laborers, that relied on game for the meat in their diet. Here in the east, the trees and predators were gone by that time (reference: Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot). It was uncontrolled hunting that maintained the game populations at basically zero population levels. With the advent of the T. Roosevelt Progressive movement (Pinchot created the US Forest Service), conservation became a popular cause ....... protecting the forests and wildlife.

If we want to control the deer herd, we need to develop an economic incentive that makes the hassle of gutting/skinning/butchering/packaging a deer equivalent to buying a piece of meat at the store. That wont be easy.
 
Deer Crossing

Got this from the Sunday paper -
 

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Wow!!!

:violin I was traveling on m32 in michigan on my '85 K100LT about 85 when a good size Doe ran in front of me. It was running with its head low, crossing the road. I had enough time to react with a little "body english" to swerve enough to where I hit the deers nose with the left fork leg. Its head made contact with the radiator scroud and the front of the motor. The motor pushed the head out of the way. The faring protected my leg from contact with the Deer, but it removed my left saddlebag and sent it down the road about 300 feet. It was the worst jolt I have ever experienced, but God must have been looking over me and I managed to keep the bike upright and safely stop. The Deer layed DEAD whear it landed but I was fine. The saddle bag stayed closed and my camera and everything inside was OK. Needles to say I NEVER go fast in DEER aerias any more. Ride with your high beam on and if you see ANY EYEBALLS reflecting back at you HIT THE SKIDS!!!!!! down to 40 mph or so, or slower. I learned by my mistake, please learn by my mistake too:brow The local Harley riders called me "The Deer Slayer" for quite a while after the incident. There was deer fur in the cracks in the radiator scroud untill I repared it for proufe.:thumb
 
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