ORIGINAL: OHbowhntr
Jim,
I'll buy that vehicles kill a LOT of deer, but I'm sure that the number of deer killed by hunters vs. vehicles is significantly more in OH. I think hunters have killed over 200K deer each of the last 4 yrs, I'm pretty sure there haven't been 800K vehicle/deer collisions in that time. Can't speak for other states, but I'm pretty sure OH doesn't have more MV killed deer than hunter killed deer.
Just a couple of quotes I've found.
In New York, for example, the actual deer road kill count is closer to 75,000.
Another......thats right eight minutes.[
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The deer is broken, legs akimbo, and lies ragged at the side of the road. Another car passes by, its driver scarcely noticing the carnage. Road kill, after all, is commonplace.
On the average day in Michigan, a car brings down a deer once every eight minutes. In 2002, more than 100 black bears died on North Carolina roads. And in a single month, a sampling of road kill in just five states counted 15,000 dead reptiles and amphibians, 48,000 mammals, and 77,000 birds.
We know that roads fragment habitat, disrupt migration corridors, and expose sensitive species to a deadly array of hazards. And now, rather than the simple road kill accounts that dominated the literature from the 1920s to 1970s, ecologists are recognizing road kill as part of a larger threat to wildlife. For rare or isolated populations, vehicle collisions can be a matter of life or death—not just at the individual level but also for entire species.