Hit any deer lately? ~ November 16, 2000

David Heiller

The deer steeped into our headlights just as we reached the top of the hill west of Sturgeon Lake.

We were heading home from the Moose Lake/Willow River football game Friday night, at about 11 p.m.

“Deer!” Cindy shouted, the way a soldier might shout “Grenade!” in a World War Two movie.

I slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. We hit the deer dead on. It flipped over the bumper and crashed into the windshield.

Both air bags popped open. We skidded to a stop. Everyone was OK, except the deer. We sat in a daze from the crash and the air bags and the awful feeling of hitting a living creature. My mind shifted quickly to wondering how much this was going to cost.

Then we staggered out of the car, coughing from the strong fumes that had emerged with the air bags. Joe Gibson pulled up behind us in his truck.

“Seems like every time I see you, you’ve hit a deer,” he said, trying to inject a bit of humor into the situation. It wasn’t funny, but I couldn’t blame him for trying. He was referring to a night a couple years earlier when I had hit a deer about a mile to the west. He had driven past that night and stopped to see if I needed help.

We found the deer on the side of the road. It was dead, both its back legs broken. Joey asked if I was going to take it. I said no, and asked if he wanted it. “We have five hanging now,” he answered.

The car was drivable, barely. The air bags, now partially deflated, were in the way, and I could just see out of the shattered windshield. A burning odor from the propellant in the airbags gagged us. Joe followed us home, in case we had car trouble, but there didn’t seem to be any engine problems from the crash.

The next day I took the car to Alberg Auto Body. They gave me a repair estimate of $4,272.40. Just to fix the air bags cost $1,200. Luckily we have collision insurance on it.

Does my story sound familiar? I bet if you live in these parts, you have come close—maybe too close—to hitting a deer this fall. They are everywhere.

I called DNR game warden Curt Rossow to ask him about the problem. He had been to the same football game and he had hit a deer on the way home too! Lucky for him it just glanced off the side of his car and didn’t do any damage. It was the second deer he has hit this fall.

Curt said if you hit a deer, you don’t have to call him, unless you want to keep the deer. Then he will write out a permit and you get to pay $23 for the privilege of having $4,000 worth of damage done to your car. But usually if you have a lot of damage to your vehicle, the deer isn’t salvageable, Curt said.

About 15,000 deer a year are killed by cars in Minnesota, Curt said. Game wardens know statistics like that, especially ones that hit two deer in the fall. The main reason why is obvious: there are a lot of deer now. “The more deer we have, the more the chances of them getting hit,” Curt said with the dogged logic of a game warden. And people are driving more too, he added.

People have died as a result of hitting deer, Rossow said, usually because they lose control of the vehicle and hit a tree, or because the deer comes through the window and causes them to crash. Some devices have been tried to prevent crashes, like whistles on the front of vehicles, or reflectors on the side of roads. But the jury is out on their effectiveness, Rossow feels.

I asked Rossow if the DNR is doing anything about the problem. He said more antlerless permits were issued this year. He and other DNR workers would rather see hunters get the deer than vehicles.

The DNR wants to keep a healthy herd, he said, so that sport hunting can continue. “They don’t want too many for the carrying capacity and they don’t want too little,” he said.

A good cold winter will take care of some of the problem, Rossow said; a mild winter will aid reproduction.

Rossow had a few tips for drivers:

·   Dusk, night time, and early in the morning are the most dangerous times for hitting deer.

·   Deer move when the rut is on, which is right about now. The more movement they have, the more likely they are to be on a road. Likewise spring is a bad time, because deer like to eat the grass in the ditches.

·  Be cautious when you drive. “Don’t have tunnel vision. Be prepared,” Rossow said. He knows from experience that that is easier said than done. Drive slower than normal, I might add.

My son, who doesn’t want to be mentioned by name in my column, thinks we should put metal spears in the front of the car so we can “shish-kabob” the deer as we drive.

Cindy thinks a deer catcher would be a good device for our car, like a cow catcher on an old steam locomotive.

Maybe Arild Frederiksen could make some and sell them at the Askov Crafters Co-op next door to the Askov American.

I’ll be the first in line.