# RoadKill...interesting info



## moonwolf (Sep 20, 2004)

Some statsitics from one source to give an idea of the impact on wildlife from road kill Motor Vehicle collisions. If mods feel like moving this topic to another forum, that's fine. I figure it's of some interest to outdoorspeople, hunters, trappers, and land owners as well as general public:

SIDEBAR - February 7, 2005
Roadkill statistics
by Staff

4 million
Miles of roads in the United States.

226 million
Number of vehicles registered in the United States.

23 trillion
Vehicle miles	traveled in the United States in 2002

6.3 million
Number of	automobile accidents annually in the United States

253,000
Number of animal-vehicle accidents annually

50
Estimated percentage of vehicle-large animal collisions that go unreported.

90
Percentage of animal-vehicle collisions that involve deer

$2,000
Average minimum cost for repairing a vehicle after a	collision with a deer

1 million
Number of	vertebrates run over each day in the United States (a rate of one every 11.5 seconds).

200
Number of human deaths annually resulting from	vehicle-wildlife collisions.

6
Number of bears killed last year by vehicles in Yellowstone National Park.

1,559
Number of animals killed on Yellowstone National Park roads from 1989-2003. Figure includes 556 elk, 192 bison, 135 coyotes, 112 moose, 24 antelope and 3 bobcats.

2,349
Number of large	animals killed on New Mexico roads in 2001. Figure includes 30 black bears, 160 elk and 600 deer.

51,000
Number of	vertebrates killed in and around Saguaro National Park by automobiles each year. Figure includes 1,400 birds, 6,500 mammals, 26,000 reptiles and 17,000 amphibians. 


25,000
Number of Roadkill Bingo games sold by the Colorado company that invented the game.

93
Percentage by which desert tortoise roadkill was reduced after fencing and culverts were installed on one 15-mile stretch of Mojave Desert highway.

40
Percentage by which deer-vehicle collisions were reduced after installation of a deer crosswalk system in northeast Utah.

HR3550
Number of House transportation bill that would require states to plan for wildlife crossings when improving or constructing highways.

Sources for statistics on pages 9, 11, 12: U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, Wildlands CPR, Wildlife Crossings Toolkit (

http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=15268


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## susieM (Apr 23, 2006)

How do you teach the deer to use the crosswalk?


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## susieM (Apr 23, 2006)

How do you teach the deer to use the crosswalk?


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## Beaners (Feb 23, 2005)

susieM said:


> How do you teach the deer to use the crosswalk?


I was wondering the same thing.

Kayleigh


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## elkhound (May 30, 2006)

i have see several of the cross things out west.they have very tall fenceing so the pronghorn cannot get on the highway.it runs for aways along it and funnels them down into a big culvert under the freeway.

here in my area there are several of these not for deer but for the farms that the highway cut in half.the cattle and farmer just go under the road.

moonwolf....as a side note.i see alot of game killed on the road now.but in the early 80's you never seen it.the reason was because of the high price of fur.when i was selling fur you could get $40 for a raccon hide and $70 for a redfox.that was alot of money back then.so people sure picked up the road kill then.i even rember seeing a couple of skinned carcass's on the road.


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## moonwolf (Sep 20, 2004)

moose are attracted to road salt in some areas where salt is plowed off to the side ditches along with the snow, or with runoff. One area that is a provincial park with a high concentration of moose, the highway department put down grates that detract the moose from crossing the highway going into those areas which seem to have lowered the highway collisions with moose there. 
out west they have high fences also as elkhoud described, especially near the provincial or national parks where traffic has become a nightmare. 

elkhound, trappers that I've heard of around here have been seeing steady increases in the fur market due to asian demand. Maybe it's the northern prime varieties they are after such as pine marten, fisher, lynx and such? Beaver has it's ups and downs. Around here with the low water levels, the beaver population is way down compared to just a couple of years ago. One guy who traps on the big lake only wishes he could get more. I remember one year a trapper gave up on beaver. He was only getting about $10 or less and sometimes buyers turned him down completely. With a wet year also then, the beavers played havoc destroying many roads with flooding by blocking up any culvert they heard running water.


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## electronrider (Nov 10, 2004)

Boy that sure is a lot of good free eatin! Just gotta make sure it's fresh roadkill!


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## big rockpile (Feb 24, 2003)

susieM said:


> How do you teach the deer to use the crosswalk?


You put a sign up that says,"Deer Crossing". :shrug: 

big rockpile


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## hunter63 (Jan 4, 2005)

Some times had to go 100 yards or so off the road just to make sure they were dead.
That where the term "hunting truck" came from.
After the first couple of animal-vehicle collisions you don't notice it so much.
It you put up your own deer crossing sign, you don't have to go as far, they come to you.


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## moonwolf (Sep 20, 2004)

big rockpile said:


> You put a sign up that says,"Deer Crossing". :shrug:
> 
> big rockpile


what if the deer lost his glasses and can't read the sign? :shrug:


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## jross (Sep 3, 2006)

I carted more deer off our road last year than I shot during the hunting season. We have the happiest buzzards around because I put them out of the way where they can feast in privacy. Of course those deer are only the ones I found. I would venture that many more just wandered off to die somewhere.


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## fantasymaker (Aug 28, 2005)

sorry the numbers just dont add up.
Or is it only an accident if a car is hurt?
253,00 anually just doesnt work out well with 1,000,000 a day


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## big rockpile (Feb 24, 2003)

moonwolf said:


> what if the deer lost his glasses and can't read the sign? :shrug:



He will have to get a Seeing Eye Turkey.

big rockpile


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## dcross (Aug 12, 2005)

fantasymaker said:


> sorry the numbers just dont add up.
> Or is it only an accident if a car is hurt?
> 253,00 anually just doesnt work out well with 1,000,000 a day


1,000,000 VERTEBRATES per day.


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## fantasymaker (Aug 28, 2005)

dcross said:


> 1,000,000 VERTEBRATES per day.


??? whats your point? whatever the 1,000,000 dead each day just are not part of the 253,000 annual accident count. unless they just were hit on purpose. besides that What do you suppose the numbers are for invertabrates? Id bet that would sure be a WOW!


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## dcross (Aug 12, 2005)

My point is if you run over a mole, you aren't going to call it an accident!

When the lake flies hatch here, I can go over a million invertebrates alone


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## Guest (Feb 3, 2007)

A cousin of mine brought me a doe deer that he hit with his pickup one night this last December. He wanted me to process it for him. On all his packages my wife wrote "RoadKill". Roadkill backstraps, roadkill round steaks, roadkill burger, roadkill sausage, etc. etc. 

Cousin says "I ain't gonna forget you for doing that". :nono: We've had the biggest laugh over that!


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## fantasymaker (Aug 28, 2005)

dcross said:


> My point is if you run over a mole, you aren't going to call it an accident!)


Why did you do it on purpose? where is the line that accident starts at?


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## bgak47 (Sep 4, 2003)

Interesting statistics! I wonder if anyone has determined which animals are hit most often? I see a lot of possums & armadillos.


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## pancho (Oct 23, 2006)

bgak47 said:


> Interesting statistics! I wonder if anyone has determined which animals are hit most often? I see a lot of possums & armadillos.


The slow ones.


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## tyusclan (Jan 1, 2005)

fantasymaker said:


> Why did you do it on purpose? where is the line that accident starts at?


It's not considered an _accident_ unless the animal is large to cause damage to the vehicle. Small animals like *****, possums, armadillos, etc. don't damage the vehicle, so they're the 1 million vertebrates that are roadkill each day, but _not_ the 253,000 _accidents_.


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

and ruin such a good harvest tool if they din't get the numbers they do around madison where they have the highest deer kill colisions and the lowest number taged and brought home by %

just need a good call list for the people who do want them 

but seriosly if there is an over pass over a railroad a lot of the deer will walk under than go over the proof is in the tracks in the snow. 

so that does it add more rail deer love rail roads and trains are undamaged by hitting deer.


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