death. That’ s right, not only was the deer not at all afraid of the dog— he killed it, according to the Bloomington newspaper.
From the deer’ s point of view, he probably felt he had put up with an awful lot in terms of humans subsuming his habitat, and was just not in the mood for all the barking that particular day.
When the weather turns bitter cold, the white-tailed blood runs hot during“ rutting season.” The females become fertile and the bucks chase them around like crazy trying to ensure that a next generation of deer will appear on the scene.
And this is when the trouble starts.
When you are leaving someplace of an evening or in the morning, people will say,“ Drive carefully!” and then add,“ Watch out for the deer!”
Because those suckers are everywhere, and they don’ t understand vehicular traffic at all. They will make a major mess out of your nice little car.
Annually, there are more than 14,000 deer-vehicle collisions reported in Indiana According Department of Natural Resources( DNR) Division of Fish and Wildlife. The total economic cost of deer-vehicle collisions in 2016 in Indiana was $ 119 million based on the average estimated cost per collision.
And the funny thing is, all of it is completely unnecessary. Once upon a time, we had completely solved the deer situation— they were completely wiped out.
Although the deer were native throughout what is now Indiana before the pioneers came, hunting and habitat destruction by an increasing number of settlers eliminated deer from the landscape by the late 1800s. The last reported native deer kill was made in Knox County in 1893.
However, beginning in 1934, deer from Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina were purchased and released in Indiana, re-establishing the deer population with an eye toward leisure sport hunting.
By 1985, the deer harvest exceeded 32,000 and by 1993, the DNR began to reduce the size of the deer herds with a one-day reduction hunt at Brown County State Park.
During the autumn“ rut,” deer are so distracted by their mating prospects that they are less cautious than usual when crossing roads, according to the DNR.
Deer are most active at dawn and dusk when they typically forage for food. Extra caution should be employed at those times.
Deer often follow each other, especially if one starts to run.
When you see one deer crossing the road in front of you, there are probably more. Slow down and watch for them.
In your eagerness to avoid hitting a deer, be careful not to swerve into oncoming traffic or a solid object like a tree. Statistically, you are far less likely to be injured by hitting a deer directly than by trying to avoid hitting one and hitting something even more substantial.
Once I was riding with a friend down a narrow Brown County Road and a big buck jumped into the road just ahead of us. My friend slammed on the brakes and I got an extreme closeup view of the underside of a big buck as it went sailing by the windshield. We stopped and got out of the car. He had leapt completely over the subcompact car, leaving only a ghostly trace of mud from his hoof across the windshield. It is a good thing he made it because an average adult male weighs 175 pounds and can run at speeds up to 35 miles per hour— not something you want coming through the windshield.
There are more white-tailed deer living in the United States today than at any other time in history. But there are fewer hunters going after them than did even 20 years ago.
My grandson is a real hunter— bow, shotgun, and muzzle loader— and he always eats what he kills, providing meat for the family table. He makes a tasty venison jerky. Every time I see one of those pesky deer, even a majestic big buck with a large rack, all I can think of is,“ Now he would make a lot of good jerky.” •
Jan./ Feb. 2018 • Our Brown County 41