Hunters are constantly on the lookout for animals while deer hunting, but this is not always the case while we’re driving. Most accidents, auto or otherwise, happen when we are not fully engaged in what we are doing. An accident is typically a result of being complacent or preoccupied with other stuff in our lives. Doing something successfully takes focus.
There are a multitude of things to distract us when driving on “down time” (ie. not hunting) as well as while we are heading to and from our favorite deer hunting grounds. We are even more prone to an automobile accident while conducting our normal activities , such as commuting to and from work, running to the grocery store or just picking up the kids after school.
Hunters are especially busy navigating winding roads, trying to keep at least one eye on the vehicle in front of us, evaluating podcast, and checking our hunting packs to make sure we didn’t forget our grunt call, rattling horns, and the like. There are also those occasional text messages, even though we know we should be focused on the road in front of us… as well as the deer!
Don’t get distracted while driving, just pull over and do what you need to do. Easy to say, more difficult to actually put into practice.
We often know which stretches of road are the “hot spots,” the places were deer typically cross back and forth across public roadways. State highway department’s have even marked many of them for automobile drivers using the readily-identifiable deer crossing sign, but it’s the places where we don’t expect deer that can get us into trouble.
The Experts on Deer-Auto Collisions
Source: U.S. drivers are just as likely to have a claim involving a collision with deer, elk or moose than they were last year, according to new claims data from State Farm. The odds drivers will have a claim from hitting one of those animals is 1 out of 169, the same as it was in 2014. That likelihood more than doubles during October, November and December, when deer collisions are most prevalent.
Update: Data for Deer-Auto Accidents for 2017-18
For the ninth year in a row, West Virginia tops the list of states where an auto insurance claim is most likely to occur because of a collision involving a deer. The odds that a driver in the Mountain State will have a claim actually improved to 1 in 44, up from 1 in 39 in 2014, an 11.4% decrease. Hawaii rounds out the bottom of the list also for the ninth year in a row with odds of 1 in 8,765.
Peak Times for Deer Accidents
“Periods of daily high-deer movement around dawn and dusk as well as seasonal behavior patterns, such as during the October-December breeding season, increase the risk for auto-deer collisions,” said Ron Regan, executive director for the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies.
“Changes in collision rates from year to year are a reflection of changing deer densities or population levels – more deer in a given area increases the potential for collision and other costs associated with whitetail. Deer populations are also affected by conditions such as new or improved roads with higher speeds near deer habitat, winter conditions, and other related factors.”
So, whether you’re just running some errands or heading out to hopefully bag a deer, make certain to keep an eye out for those four-legged critters. The is especially important to remember during the whitetail breeding season since bucks increase their movements substantially. Deer can show up in some very unusual places, and one of those places does not need to be your radiator.
It’s much better to bag a deer with your bow or gun rather than your vehicle, and it’s a lot less costly. Deer-auto collisions can equate to big costs in terms of property damage, but an accident could also cost someone’s life. It really does not matter how many deer are hit by automobiles each year in the area where you live, as long as you are not the one hitting, or alternatively, being hit. Slow your ride down, be careful and good luck out there, whether hunting or driving.
What makes a person want to hunt an animal, whether it be a squirrel or a white-tailed deer? Admittedly, it’s strange to imagine myself never having experienced hunting. But if I was an adult that had never gone hunting, would I feel a need to learn more about it, try it, or would I even understand it?
It’s tough to say because again, I really cannot imagine myself not hunting. It’s an activity that goes hand-in-hand with the way I was raised from the beginning of my life. I guess we, like many generations before, were locavores. With the food industry now a big business, hunting and gathering food locally is now coming back to roost, so to speak.
For those persons never exposed to deer hunting or even small game hunting, whether it be as a child or a young adult, it would take a lot of initiative to gear up, get out there and try it all on their own sometime later in life. People definitely do it. It takes a lot to be a self-starter, regardless of the activity.
Hunting an Innate Action
The act of hunting is definitely something natural within humans, but it’s not necessarily easy to start doing—at least not in today’s world. Let’s face it, hunting is much more of a financial commitment today than it was in the past. Even a just a few decades ago, before hunting leases were the norm, everyone at least knew someone that knew someone were a person could do some sort of hunting.
Now, hunting land translates into income for landowners, so in some cases that means even children of landowners are not allowed to hunt the family land.
There are still public lands, but depending on when and where a first-time hunter went, well, that could ruin a person for life. There are a lot of great public hunting lands out there, too, especially the managed state and federal properties.
Locavores Hunt for Fresh Foods
Source: “Millennials are now our society’s largest group, but they don’t participate in hunting at the same rates as baby boomers,” Warnke said. “Meanwhile, the boomers are aging and dropping out of the hunting population. Their losses wouldn’t be so noticeable if more millennials started hunting. In business terms, the hunting community leaves a lot of money on the table by not engaging more millennials.”
Warnke said millennials represent a great opportunity for hunting, much as digital cameras once did for Kodak.
“People forget that the driving force in digital photography was a Kodak employee who Kodak ignored,” Warnke said. “Kodak didn’t embrace change, and look what happened to it. We can’t afford to ignore millennials, especially when so many of them are open to hunting, including females.”
Warnke said half the millennials in adult “Learn to Hunt” programs are young women. That trend is also apparent in DNR license sales. In 2006, females made up 7.66 percent of the state’s roughly 645,000 gun-deer hunters. By 2014, female participation accounted for 10.6 percent of gun-hunters.
Female participation rates for gun-deer hunting are increasing fastest among millennials. For instance, female participation never exceeded 20 percent for any age group until 2007, when girls represented 20.6 percent of all 12-year-old gun-deer hunters. In 2014, girls represented nearly 26 percent of 12-year-old gun-deer hunters.
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Our Hunting Heritage
Hunting is something that can be taught, but it’s also something that can be learned. Hunting is a natural part of every animal, including humans. It’s in our DNA from the beginning of our lives. Like other activities millennials choose to engage in, it takes experience to become a proficient hunter, but we all start with the same amount of experience, zero.
In a time when many our concerned about our hunting heritage, it’s refreshing to hear about people with little or no hunting experiences taking to the outdoors. These new hunters join the rank and file and I welcome their participation. Historically, hunting has always been an activity of locavores, before we had a term for simply living off the land.
It’s a good idea that we return to the land. Many are far removed, to the detriment of our society. As Aldo Leopold wrote, “There can be no doubt that a society rooted in the soil is more stable than one rooted in pavements.” Call these new men and women taking to the field millennials or locavores or whatever you wish, I’ll simply refer to them as hunters.
Typically, we hear or see whitetail does snort, but do bucks blow too. In fact, bucks will blow at you in the same situation as does, but older bucks do not always reveal their location by making such a racket.
White-tailed deer are one of the most hunted game animals in North America. They also have strong populations found throughout the US, with numbers in many cases exceeding the optimal carrying capacity of the landscape. When deer numbers are inflated, it’s tough on both native plants as well as a deer herd, but white-tailed deer keep on doing what they do. Deer are survivors.
Whitetail are keen animals. They have several senses that help keep them safe, but they also give physical and auditory cues to other deer in the area. This article discusses one of the sounds that whitetail deer use to communicate to one another, the snort or blow.
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What is a Blow or Snort Sound?
To a hunter, the sound of a buck or doe blowing is the worst sound in the woods. The sound means something is out of place. Deer know what the woods are supposed to smell like and a loud blow, snorting sound means they know something is there that should not be. Often times, hunters realized that they have been “busted.”
Every deer within earshot of the deer blowing is on full alert and is probably going to leave the area. Game over for that day or maybe even a few days.
The sound of a deer snorting is quite unique. The sound is created by deer forcefully expelling air from their nose. It sounds exactly like someone saying as loud as they can, “Shhhhhhhhhh,” as if telling you to be quiet, but incredibly loud.
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When Will Deer Blow at You?
White-tailed deer have incredible sniffers on them. Bucks, does and fawns can smell really well with their nose, which is their best way of detecting predators, intruders. If sitting still, deer are much more likely to smell you they see you. Once they smell you, get ready for a loud snort!
Deer snort to tell the intruding person or predator that they are aware or their presence and also to let other deer know that something is awry. From my experience, does are much more likely to snort than bucks. Bucks do blow too, but younger bucks are more likely to snort than older bucks.
It seems older bucks are more averse to blowing and snorting because they just want to get out of there. So although bucks can and will snort, mature bucks are more concerned with getting away from the intruder than providing the intruder with its location.
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I’ve observed this behavior a number of times while hunting. When an older buck traveling downwind of me picks up my scent, rather than blowing to alert other deer he simply slips back into the woods in the direction he came (where it is still presumably safe). I’m sure this happens more often than hunters realize because in dense cover we can not see very far, but deer can pick up scent for a long ways downwind.
This is why deer hunters employ scent control strategies. Hunters try to minimize human scent and typically position themselves downwind of traveling and feeding deer. Deer can not smell you if your scent is headed the opposite direction.
Where Will This Happen?
A deer smells a variety of scents in its environment. Some are perceived as okay, some no so much. A whitetail knows which smells are normal and which ones are out of place. This is one reason why a deer living in an urban environment may not snort at you, but a young buck out in the country will blow at you 300 yards away. Different environments.
There is also a certain “scent threshold” that must be exceeded to alarm a deer. A faint scent and a deer knows there is something way out there, somewhere, but likely not a threat. However, a nose-full of human scent and the deer knows you are there, very close, and is suddenly on high alert. Get ready!
In closing, white-tailed deer use the action/process of blowing and snorting to alert both the intruder and other deer in the area. Both does and bucks do blow when they smell something out of place and they will blow at you, especially when you are in close proximity and they can smell, but not see you.
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) was confirmed just over one month ago in a captive 1-1/2 year old white-tailed buck in Texas. The first deer to test positive for the disease, however, may not be alone. Reports indicate that at least two additional white-tailed deer have also (initially) tested positive.
The state, however, is awaiting confirmation from a second laboratory in Ames, Iowa, before making an official statement. If true, this would make at least three deer that have tested positive in a captive deer breeding facility in Medina County, Texas.
CWD Containment?
The additional CWD-positive deer, at least in my thinking, makes the odds of having CWD contained to a single Texas deer breeding facility much less likely. Research on the deer disease has found that it can be spread quite readily within a herd, so it would have been a little short-sided for anyone to have believed the first deer that tested positive would have been the last.
If the report of additional deer testing positive turns out to be accurate, which seems likely at this point, then the captive deer breeding industry in Texas will be more than a little unsettled about having opened Pandora’s box.
CWD Settles into Medina, Uvalde County?
Austin American Statesman: State officials said Saturday that two additional deer from a captive herd in Medina County tested positive for a contagious, degenerative neurological disease, a discovery that could lead to the annihilation of an entire herd of deer.
Two preliminary tests came back positive for CWD, but confirmation will have to wait until samples are tested by the diagnostic laboratory in Ames, Iowa, officials said. Results could be available by the middle of next week, said Josh Havens, spokesman for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
… “We aren’t going to make a knee-jerk reaction regarding the rest of the herd without having results from Ames,” Havens said. He added that “ultimately any decision made will be based on what is in the best interest of the state’s entire captive and free-ranging deer herds.”
White-tailed deer hunting is huge in Texas. There are an estimated 700,000 deer hunters and 3.5 million whitetail in the state, making Texas number one in both whitetail hunter and deer numbers. Whitetail are important for the hunting heritage of state.
The “deer hunting industry” is estimated to account for over $2 billion annually, which according to my calculations makes each harvested deer worth about $3,400. That means each pound of boneless venison has a value of about $100. That puts things into perspective.
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CWD’s Impact on Hunting
In my book, wild, free-ranging white-tailed deer and deer hunting are simply priceless. It’s difficult to imagine a time when things could significantly change, and not for the better. At the time of writing, t’s been just over a month since chronic wasting (CWD) disease was found in a captive deer herd in Texas.
What will result from the discovery of CWD in Texas? What impact will this have on the deer population in the area where CWD is found? Has there been an overreaction or an underreaction? Will CWD impact the future of deer hunting in Texas?
CWD Testing of Deer
Source: There are a number of additional factors influencing this matter. Currently, the fastest and most accurate CWD detection test and the only test recognized by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is a post- mortem inspection of the animal’s brain tissue. Captive breeder deer in Texas are property of the state, held by permit to possess.
TPWD and TAHC have the regulatory authority to seize deer in pens for testing, but are going to great lengths to reach compromise and provide options to captive deer breeders, while balancing the risks posed to the native free-range herd as well.
There are ante-mortem, or live animal, tests available to detect CWD. Obviously, this is preferable over euthanizing deer. Unfortunately, these tests require multiple rounds over several months to reach an acceptable accuracy level. Additionally, these tests are not approved by USDA, meaning that Texas would lose “status” with USDA if live animal tests were relied upon and therefore not be able to transport deer across state lines.
If the decision is made to use these tests, then a quarantine period would be necessary on exposed facilities and two additional layers of trace-out facilities while testing is completed.
The scope and scale of captive deer breeders exposed to the index facility is huge. Over 10% of the captive deer breeding industry has direct Tier 1 exposure. For disease containment purposes, TPWD and TAHC must consider additional layers of trace-out facilities from those that are directly exposed. If an additional confirmed CWD finding occurs outside of the index facility, then the process starts all over again.
This could very quickly reach an enormous share of the captive deer breeder facilities in the state. TPWD and TAHC were absolutely correct to halt all movement statewide. Fortunately, July is the lowest period of captive breeder deer movement in the year.
Unfortunately, there is spike in captive breeder deer movement from mid-August to mid-September in preparation for hunting season. This is unfortunate because it creates a financial incentive for the captive deer breeding industry to push for movement restrictions to be lifted, perhaps prematurely. There is still substantial work to be done by TPWD and TAHC on testing and containment efforts.
These agencies are literally working around the clock, but there are only so many qualified people and only so many hours in the day. They must be allowed to do their job in a careful way without outside pressure.
There are approximately 1,300 captive deer breeder permit holders in Texas, who hold approximately 110,000 deer in pens. For perspective, there are approximately 700,000 deer hunters and 3,900,000 free-ranging deer in Texas. The deer hunting industry at-large generates $2.1 billion of economic impact to the state per year.
Rural economies and even rural property values rely on deer hunting in some form or fashion.
Simply put, public faith in the health of the Texas deer herd (native free-range and captive) transcends the financial interests of 1,300 permit holders. TWA is working hard to provide that voice of reason in the discussion. As things develop more, I will continue to provide updates.
