Car kills….

Or lack of. We drove to Cedar Falls this morning on Highway 63 and saw exactly 2 car kills, down and back. One was a real decent doe. The other was a very heavy antlered buck. I couldn’t get a point count but both sides were intact, antlers Wayyyy outside of the ears and had mass like nothing I have seen lately. Body-wise I think that deer was in the 275 pound range.

What with all the corning being picked down and back I thought for certain there would have been more car kills but it was just those two. Both in Iowa, both between New Hampton and Waterloo. We did see one site where fat was scattered and smeared all over the road but no carcass. Honestly it looked like a pig got hit.

This is a drive we make every year at this time ans in past years anywhere from 10 to 30 car kills have been counted. This year with combines in fields all along the route only two dead ones.

People are driving slower cause their glued to their cell phones so the deer are able to dodge them.

JEREMY wrote:

People are driving slower cause their glued to their cell phones so the deer are dodge them.

Could be some logic in there.

The diseases and predators are getting them before the cars. I see more dead skunk and raccoon than deer

There has been an uptick on car kills around me in the last week or so. Most look to be yearlings.

There was a dead buck on my way home from Princeton today over near grubsons house. I had half a mind to lop the rack off so the kid had new rattlers but I was to lazy to turn around.

I’ve always thought road kills were a severely underestimated data point when measuring deer populations. With the price of vehicles and insurance people surely aren’t trying to hit them, and the higher the density per acre in a given area you’d assume car collisions correlate in some way. It seems more accurate than random “reports” from people who climb into trees one week a year and complain about not seeing deer.

Totally agree with you bucky! I didn’t see any road kill on my 3 1/2 hour drive to the cabin but I don’t think the rut started yet based on signs I’ve seen in the woods

Thinking it’ll pick up soon though

I used to make a lot of trips from the cities to Cedar Rapids, and the area around Chester, IA always had a bunch of dead roadkills. I also saw a couple get smoked there on trips. So much that I tried to make sure I was through there well before dusk.

Deer hits keep us busy year round but especially this time of year. With corn prices low it may be that a lot of farmers aren’t combining yet if they don’t have to so the deer are staying where the food is and not traveling as much.

With the lady running both the body shops she says deer hit are still plentiful. Keeps her guys busy.

Saw a dead bear in the ditch next to Hwy 53 near Canyon MN on my way home yesterday. Would far rather hit a deer than a bear.

every day up here in Walker area, many road kills

I took quite a few trips out to central Virginia the last couple years with my oldest daughter going to college out there. Wisconsin had more road kill deer than anywhere. I joked last fall that had I brought the cordless sawzall I could’ve filled the pickup bed with antlers. But honestly it would’ve been close. Hundreds of bucks. Mostly 2-3 year old 4-8 points. But average of 2 per mile that I saw. Most likely more that I didn’t see.

No kidding PoP. I went to my brother’s place last year south of Wausau. 94 t0 52. About 10 miles into Wisconsin i started seeing roadkill. I counted 69 dead deer.

That’s more dead deer in Wisconsin then all of live deer in Itasca County

John Rasmussen wrote:

Could be some logic in there.

so you’re saying all I need to do is open up my Uber eats app to avoid the deer???? Oh boy, sign me back up!!! Lol