A deer underpass

Press, 22 June 1979, Page 13

A deer underpass

From

JOHN HUTCHISON

in San Francisco

Deer and the motor car are bad for each other in California which has large numbers of both.

Many deer are killed or crippled on California highways, even in suburbs near to San Francisco, where deer, although protected, are pervasive enough to be a nuisance to gardeners. Collision with an adult buck does not do a car much good, either.

The state highway department has adopted an unusual measure to cope with the problem along one stretch of road in a remote part of northeastern California where a busy interstate highway intercepts the migrations of deer between mountain pastures and the iower country of neighbouring Nevada, where they take refuge for the winter.

Underpasses and fences with one-way escape gates were built in 19/6 uioug six kilometres where the deer-car conflict was unusually hazardous. A recent report shows that it has been a success, although. the cost of construction makes wide application of the idea unlikely.

The present project appears to affect an unusual “corridor” of deer migration justifying the special protection. At least 1000, and perhaps 1500, deer make the semiannual trek ' through the corridor. In one year before the rescue project was built, 37 deer were killed outright on the

way there, and a still larger number are thought to have died of injury after struggling into the bush.

No human fatalities were reported, but at even moderate speed, collision with an antlered mule deer can cause costly damage to a car and severe injury to the occu-

pants. Fences more than two metres high were built on : de nf *he kilometre stretch, with v through which the animals can push if they enter the area through the ends. Three tunnels were built under the roadway. The project cost $500,000.

Deer have learned to use the passages, the road killings have ended, and state wildlife specialists have reaped an interesting dividend: by stirring the earth and raking it smooth in the underoasses they can make hoofprint counts which provide a useful census.

California has six kinds of deer, the most numerous being the small Columbian blacktail, often seen in the coastal bush and occasionally even straying into suburban streets. The deer affected by the highway project are one of the three types of larger mule deer distributed through other parts of the state.

A hunter, properlv licensed, may kill one male deer during a short open season each autumn.