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State tries animal underpasses to cut crashes with growing population. Date published: 11/30/2005
By MICHAEL ZITZ If Capt. John Smith had taken Pocahontas out on a date in Jamestown on a fall evening in 1608, there's no way her father would have believed he got her home late because he hit a deer. Today, however, Smith might be in more peril from deer than from Pocahontas' cranky dad, Chief Powhatan. According to the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, the state's deer population is believed to be about twice as large today as it was in Pocahontas' time--partly because deer like a suburban lifestyle. There are now so many deer--and so many cars--in Virginia that the state ranked seventh in the nation in collisions with the animals from July 1, 2004, and June 30, 2005, according to State Farm Insurance Companies. Pennsylvania was No. 1. The deer population in Virginia this fall is estimated at 950,000, compared to about 400,000 around the year 1600. And the state's deer population is about 20 times as big as in the 1920s, around the time restrictions were imposed on hunting, said Nelson Lafon, an official with the game department's deer project in Verona. In a typical year, two people are killed in crashes involving deer in Virginia, Lafon said. Last year, there were 5,513 crashes involving deer in the state that were reported to police, including one fatality, the Virginia Department of Transportation reports. A total of 407 people were injured in collisions with deer last year in the state. VDOT estimates that there were a staggering 34,000 deer-related crashes in the state last year, including cases not reported to authorities--5,000 in Fairfax County alone. In many instances, drivers just leave the scene and report the damages to their insurer. In some cases, they take the deer with them for meat. State Farm estimates that, nationally, 1.5 million vehicles collide with deer every year, resulting in 150 motorists deaths and $1.1 billion in vehicle damages. A survey of state transportation departments found that the majority have installed some sort of wildlife crossing structures across their roadways. Of the 34 states that responded, 29 use culverts, 24 bridge extensions, 23 underpasses, and six overpasses.
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