Tis' the Season

Yep, you guessed it! It’s that time of year again…The Rut! Around this time of year, you’re driving down the road around dusk and all of a sudden, there it is….a huge deer in the middle of the road! Or, if you’re like my husband and me, you get run into out of nowhere in broad daylight by a 6-point buck! 

Our poor car that had over $4,000 in damage from one deer

Unfortunately, there are a lot of casualties around this time of year for deer due to being hit by cars or hitting cars. It’s hard to see such large impressive animals like the white-tailed deer that could be food for another animal or for people just wasted on the side of the road. Not to mention the potential harm that can come to drivers and all the car damage and financial issues associated with deer-car collisions. The average cost of a claim for repairs to a car after colliding with a deer is over $3,500 (according to a StateFarm report)! The chance of hitting a deer varies by state based on deer densities, hunting regulations, number of licensed drivers, human population density, amount of habitat fragmentation and other factors.  

Since humans have removed top predators from most parts of the U.S., hunting is an important form of deer population management. I’m not a hunter and don’t think I can ever become one, plus I’ll admit when I was a young kid, I thought hunting meant that people were killing Bambi. My uncle and cousin are hunters and I just didn’t get it, but as I grew up and learned about wildlife populations and important control methods like hunting, it made more sense.  

If deer populations go unchecked, they can harm ecosystems by decimating the habitat understory; contribute to the spread of certain diseases like Lyme disease, potentially harm certain crops and much more. Not to mention, the impact that large deer populations can have on the deer themselves, such as starvation, diseases like Chronic Wasting Disease, getting hit by cars, etc…, so it’s really a bad scenario for everyone if deer populations grow out of control. It’s of course important for states to carefully regulate the hunting programs and keep track of safe hunting practices. In some states, like Illinois, the sales of hunting licenses even help to fund wildlife research programs.

Unfortunately for us, our 2 year old son still talks about the deer that ran into the car and even reenacts the event with his truck and toy animals. We have started to simply discuss with him that the deer ran into the car and then ran away. We think the deer is okay and we needed to get the car fixed. We’ll start to discuss some of the above concepts with him more as he asks more questions and gets older.

What do you think about deer population control? How have you discussed this topic with kids? Please share your comments below.