seasonal reminder....

[Guest]

Hi all,

I saw 3 deer related crashes on my 25 minute drive to work this morning and narrowly missed bagging a 6-point myself.... the bucks have baby batter for brains this time of year, be safe and give yourself some extra margin.....

 

[Redman]

...........this morning .... ..... .....

Dawn-sunrize...?

i know in evening-sunset-dusk they are out and about more than day time.
havent thought so much about morning time. Thanks for bringing that up.

has been a while since I have been riding up your way. When I do get on river road, I find myself saying ?this is the best road in sourounding county?s, I get here seldom, and it?s what Greg takes to work everyday.?

 

[bwringer]

Since bagging a seven-pointer with my KLR650 on November 9, 2013 (I had no idea that was pretty much the peak of the rut around here) I stay out of the countryside for the next four or five weeks starting about now.

I was riding in Kentucky this past weekend (October 19-20) and saw several does but no bucks. But pretty soon the bucks around here will start getting bolder, more aggressive and start doing even stupider things than deer already do, if that's possible for one of the dumbest animals on the planet.

Man, I hate deer.

Eat more venison.

 

[Sandy]

Yup. That time of year. One tip is to not be totally distracted by that deer that crossed in front you because there probably is another couple that are waiting to follow it.

 

[trevor]

We had a bear cross in front of us on Sunday on our way back from a dual sport ride up island.

 

[Guest]

I know it is a bit of a bore, topic wise. These were all between 8 and 9 am, two there on river road and one near an elementary school near us. The 6 point I saw jumped across the main road in our neighborhood, all residential area....he was headed down towards Muskegon lake. Definitely did not expect to see him there, at that hour. Got my attention.

 

[Guest]

We have mass quantities of deer in Pennsylvania. The important deer predator in the state is hunters ? they kill around 300k per year. Without them there would be a lot more hit by vehicles.

 

[Spyder]

Yep, guy was just killed a couple days ago in the South Bend area. Hit a deer with his bike... Be careful out there guys...

 

[bwringer]

I've never figured out why there are still hunting seasons and limits for deer; they're MASSIVELY overpopulated throughout North America, yet the numbers of hunters are dwindling.

They're vermin, and we don't have nearly enough exterminators left to even make much of a dent. So why limit hunting like this? States could raise even more revenue from deer tags and maybe everyone would get a little safer.

Yes, deer populations crashed early in the 20th century due to hunting pressure back when pretty much anyone who could walk and carry a gun was hunting. Those days are long gone, but hunting laws are still based around a scarcity of game and a surplus of hunters. It's koo-koo.

This is a pretty decent article from Time magazine: "America's Pest Problem: It's time to Cull the Herd"
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,2158676-1,00.html

Walt Disney has killed a LOT of riders - the movie "Bambi" convinced a generation or two of impressionable children that deer were beautiful, intelligent wild animals and made it impossible to pass rational regulation or take action to control the population of these pests.

Eat more venison.

 

[Guest]

Missed a doe yesterday by a few feet, she would have been tasty.

 

[Spyder]

Even if they open it up for a couple years, and then tighten the regulation again. Just to thin the population. I still can't believe we can't buy venison at any local grocery store...

 

[Wingsconsin]

Urban sprawl has caused us to be living amongst them even more than ever before.
The issue with that is it is unlikely to have a HUNTER take one out of the herd in the neighborhood.
Come to me house and drive around and see 8-10 deer any day of the week - and turkey, racoons, opossum, skunks, and squirells and chipminks too -
All in numerous obnoxious numbers --But the area is rife with lightly wooded 1-2 acre homesites -
Lots of 'natural' areas in every yard (small groves of pine and mixed hardwoods) - and a 20 acre park in the center of the subdivision.
It is a beautiful area to live -- but not hunted so Deer and other game animals run wild --
Last weekend we had a FOX run through our yard in the mid-day while we were out burning leaves and tree debris...
And of course the feral cats and many neighborhood pet dogs.

And in the past 3 years the developers have taken down more wild habitat near me for future housing - take down the wooded area and the farm land and create another neighborhood - displacing even more DEER to wander the highways near me...

One has to be mighty careful when riding in deer country - which is where I live...

 

[limeex2]

Lots of deer in 'sconie !!! I hit one in St Croix county 2013. Compound spiral fracture of the tibula@fibula, 4 broken ribs and a collor bone. Killed the deer and bike. The very next spring I had one run right in front of me again. I roadraced way back when and always update my brakes with at least different pads. Its what saved me. If you see them running next to you and think they will be frightened away, just stop. Cant be trusted.

In the spring, the does have new fawns and kick out the yearling so they wander about aimlessly, in the fall there in rut chasing each other to breed. We all know what thats like...

 

[Guest]

Urban sprawl has caused us to be living amongst them even more than ever before.
The issue with that is it is unlikely to have a HUNTER take one out of the herd in the neighborhood.
Come to me house and drive around and see 8-10 deer any day of the week - and turkey, racoons, opossum, skunks, and squirells and chipminks too -
All in numerous obnoxious numbers --But the area is rife with lightly wooded 1-2 acre homesites -
Lots of 'natural' areas in every yard (small groves of pine and mixed hardwoods) - and a 20 acre park in the center of the subdivision.
It is a beautiful area to live -- but not hunted so Deer and other game animals run wild --
Last weekend we had a FOX run through our yard in the mid-day while we were out burning leaves and tree debris...
And of course the feral cats and many neighborhood pet dogs.

And in the past 3 years the developers have taken down more wild habitat near me for future housing - take down the wooded area and the farm land and create another neighborhood - displacing even more DEER to wander the highways near me...

One has to be mighty careful when riding in deer country - which is where I live...

A number of communities in the Pittsburgh area have used a managed archery hunt to control the dear population. Might be useful to suggest that to your local government given the problems you have.

 

[Wingsconsin]

20 minutes AFTER I posted about the DEER in Urban environment I went for an errand.
I am on my bike - but in a car would've been the same

A DEER crossing a 6 lane highway in the middle of the city of Brookfield which is highly commercial -
Shopping malls, restaurants, banks, etc.
All down the stretch of road of nearly 5-6 miles I would guess --
NO GREEN SPACE ANYWHERE --

And some dumb spike buck decided to go for a walk --
When I went past he was still alive and uninjured...

 

[BigD_83]

I've never figured out why there are still hunting seasons and limits for deer; they're MASSIVELY overpopulated throughout North America, yet the numbers of hunters are dwindling.

I ran across an article the other day about hunting in either upper NY State or Vermont. They have opened it right up to basically no limits, but they are STILL having a hard time getting enough hunters to fill the quota allocations. I'll post it if I can find the article

EDIT- I can't find the article I was looking for, but this one from NPR is a good read.

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/593001800/decline-in-hunters-threatens-how-u-s-pays-for-conservation

 

[bwringer]

Urban sprawl has caused us to be living amongst them even more than ever before.
The issue with that is it is unlikely to have a HUNTER take one out of the herd in the neighborhood.
Come to me house and drive around and see 8-10 deer any day of the week - and turkey, racoons, opossum, skunks, and squirells and chipminks too -
All in numerous obnoxious numbers --But the area is rife with lightly wooded 1-2 acre homesites -
Lots of 'natural' areas in every yard (small groves of pine and mixed hardwoods) - and a 20 acre park in the center of the subdivision.
It is a beautiful area to live -- but not hunted so Deer and other game animals run wild --
Last weekend we had a FOX run through our yard in the mid-day while we were out burning leaves and tree debris...
And of course the feral cats and many neighborhood pet dogs.

And in the past 3 years the developers have taken down more wild habitat near me for future housing - take down the wooded area and the farm land and create another neighborhood - displacing even more DEER to wander the highways near me...

One has to be mighty careful when riding in deer country - which is where I live...

There are many reasons for the overpopulation. It's true that urban sprawl is a huge part of it; there's little habitat left. Low predator populations are the other part of the equation -- we've replaced the wolf with the feral Buick and the wild Suzuki. We're also growing billions of acres of food for them, so deer that wouldn't have made it through their first winter back in 1492 can stay fat and happy without moving around much.

Deer populations in most states are much higher than they were in prehistoric times. It's way out of whack. Deer are perfectly willing (or too dumb) to live near people, but most predators other than maybe coyotes are far more affected by urban sprawl. Plus, we've spent thousands of years killing predators on sight, and people still aren't truly willing to live near wolves, bears, and big cats.

Yeah, when you've got several weeks of recovery before you can walk, you can do a lot of research and thinking... however, I don't have the foggiest idea how to solve this problem. More hunting can only help a little; there are only so many people willing to hunt these days and only so many people willing to eat venison. And they're vermin that multiply unbelievably fast. Even if the meat could be sold, it would be tough to make much of a dent.

I think one of the smartest partial solutions I've seen is in Missouri. Basically, Missouri cuts back the brush on the sides of the country roads a lot further than in any other state I've seen -- they go at least 12 feet back on both sides on all the letter roads, usually quite a bit more. This gives you some crucial added time to react, and gives animals less incentive to wander out into the road. You see a lot of deer hanging out next to the treeline that would otherwise be standing in the road in other states. It's undoubtedly saved a lot of human lives.


I also see deer on pretty much every ride in Indiana. The buck I hit in 2013 was basically in a full gallop running straight across the road. I had only a few milliseconds to catch the barest glimpse of the dumb bastard. In the ambulance, one of the EMTs asked what happened (mostly he was just keeping me talking to assess whether I had a concussion), and I told them "I hit a buck, a six or eight pointer... I only had a glimpse." He looked outside for a few seconds and told me "That's pretty good -- it's a seven pointer. Most people have no idea."

I collected my third broken left femur and my second broken right wrist in that one. Somehow the main frame of my KLR was not bent, so I rebuilt the bike with lots of fleaBay bits.

And yes, I absolutely avoid the countryside around the time of the rut. Ordinary deer are bad enough year-round, but during the rut the bucks are just nutso. They're in constant motion with no regard for their own safety.

 

[LAB3]

Here in Michigan there's over one million deer taken during hunting season! I'd always wondered why clear cutting of timber on state land was done instead of selective cutting, it turns out they do it to encourage growth of Aspen which is summer forage for Deer, the practice is to keep Deer numbers up for hunters and not for forest health. In the rural areas if the state hunting is more than just a cultural issue as it brings hunters up from the cities, meaning dollars spent in the local towns to help prop up their economies.

 

[limeex2]

Here in Michigan there's over one million deer taken during hunting season! I'd always wondered why clear cutting of timber on state land was done instead of selective cutting, it turns out they do it to encourage growth of Aspen which is summer forage for Deer, the practice is to keep Deer numbers up for hunters and not for forest health. In the rural areas if the state hunting is more than just a cultural issue as it brings hunters up from the cities, meaning dollars spent in the local towns to help prop up their economies.

Clear cutting timber is for money. With it, comes a food source and great cover for deer. No hunter can get through a clear cut. We hunt on public land and our area had been groomed for hunting for over 50 years. Usually about a 50-60% fill rate. 3 years ago they clear cut our whole area. We had probably 10 permanent deer stands. Now we have tramp through the woods, put up our stands the day before opener. If you put them up ahead of time, they get stolen. 0 deer in 3 years for 9 hunters hunting 3 days. If I could drive a bike or car through the woods, I know I could get one. lol.

 

[Redman]

............... In the rural areas if the state hunting is more than just a cultural issue ................

Several years ago I was in a jury pool and lawyers were asking questions about who were hunters and such. Then it was stated that the trail was going to be about poaching, and the lawyers asked if any prospective juror had any question.
One perspective juror asked "Just what is poaching?". The lawyer explained about hunting seasons and hunting laws and such. The prospective juror then said "Really? There are laws about that? The state has laws about that? and people can get fined? Really? Why arent there laws about covering your divot on the greens?"