Daylight saving time ends Halloween night, which means more trick-or-treating for us and more danger for deer. <\/p>\n
Drivers hit deer a whopping 16% more the week we turn our clocks back, and the last three months of the year see the highest number of deer collisions, experts say. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody knows the story of, \u2018Oh, we changed the clocks and now my dog wants to get fed an hour earlier, an hour late,’\u201d said Jessica LaBumbard, Executive Director at Wildwoods Wildlife Rehabilitation. \u201cAnimals don\u2019t understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Between 2016 and 2020, drivers reported on average 1,244 collisions a year in Minnesota to the Department of Public Safety, but that\u2019s likely a drastic underestimate. Katelynn Rolfes, a Conservation Advocate at Environment Minnesota, said often people just leave the dead deer and don\u2019t bother reporting it to state officials. <\/p>\n
Associate Professor Ron Moen at the University of Minnesota said State Farm collision numbers are substantially higher, because people are more likely to report to their insurance. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I go from Highway 194 to Highway 33, we found 12 times as many deer vehicle collisions as were reported to the Department of Public Safety,\u201d Moen said. <\/p>\n
Drivers hit more deer this time of year for multiple reasons: the deer haven\u2019t had time to learn when the road is busy, it gets darker earlier and they\u2019re often on the move looking to mate. Other wildlife are hitting the road too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re getting ready for winter,\u201d Rolfes said. \u201cThey\u2019re getting ready for the cold to come and they\u2019re moving around a little bit more and getting settled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the risk, everything from porcupines to vultures are drawn to the roads to eat litter, road salt or roadkill, and when they\u2019re hit in Duluth, people often bring them to Wildwoods. LaBumbard tries to nurse them back to health, but the mortality rate is about 100% for fawns. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe see what the human impact on wildlife is, and it\u2019s really, really hard because a lot of it is preventable,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
One obvious solution is to drive more carefully. LaBumbard said drivers need to realize that they\u2019re entering a \u201cliving landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnimals are living here. Nature is living here. What can I do as a person behind the wheel of this vehicle?\u201d she asked. <\/p>\n
The experts say building barriers along the road can keep the wildlife out of harm\u2019s way, and there are other, more creative solutions. Environment Minnesota is advocating for the state to fund safe crossing initiatives, like culverts under the road for deer and other animals to pass. <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFor Related Stories:\u00a0Alex Haddon<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Duluth<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daylight saving time ends Halloween night, which means more trick-or-treating for us and more danger for deer. Drivers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":895493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[375414,81856,79,201],"class_list":["post-895492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-alex-haddon","tag-duluth","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}