You know its bad when....

[Trout King]

Your driving through downtown Ionia and there are blood and guts splattered on the road and a dear lying crushed next to the road...what does tis say about the population? I have friends in town and i'll see 10-15 deer in there yards...in town...I think there are almost too many deer around my area...almost that is,lol ;)

[Bow_Hunter]

Pretty hard to judge deer population by just looking at road kill. Where I live, the deer herd is bigger then ever and I have been seeing less and less road kill.

In fact, I hit one the other day. I was able to slow down enough that my van suffered very little damage and deer seemed no worse for the wear.

It is a shame when I deer gets hit by a vehicle, but it is not a very good way to judge population.

[mich buckmaster]

Bow Hunter I agree, in that there are a lot of variable to road kill, not just population.

Some of the biggest populated deer areas around us are slow driving areas and EVERYONE knows that it is deer forest!!

You always see deer on highways and busier roads because they are busier roads with better chance of hitting the deer.

just my 02

[gunrod]

Also remember that some of the green up occurs on the roadside before the woods. Deer move to the roads to feed on the grasses. Doesn't necessarily mean the there are a ton of deer but considering the Ionia are is populated with agriculture it could mean something in your area.

[Chuck]

Its the same thing every year,

Spring the does are pushing there kin outta the nest to drop there fawns. This means more deer movement. So this time of year there are more road kills.

In the fall you have the rut, more deer movement = more death on the roadways.

It has nothing to do with deer population. :)

Unless your seeing lots of dead deer during other times of the year then maybe its a poppulation issue.

[Pinefarm]

It tells me that the population is way too high and needs to be limited. Here's what I would do to limit the population. I would set a limit of the maximum population allowed in that county. I wouldn't allow any new housing in the county. I wouldn't allow anyone to move to the county without a permit. I wouldn't allow any new businesses in the county. I wouldn't build any new roads in the county. I would restrict the amount of vehicle's on the road , with road blocks, from 8:00pm to 8:00am in that county. I would lower the speed limit on rural roads to 25 mph in that county. It would also be worth looking into controlling the amount of offspring allowed per female.

[jdt]

they tried that in 1939!

[farmlegend]

Road kill or not, there are plenty of deer in parts of Ionia county. Seen 'em with my own eyes.

[Swamp Ghost]

No deer in Michigan, LOL! Why all the fuss?

The number of deer that are killed on our highways theoretically should provide a good index to deer numbers. As the deer herd increases or decreases the number of deer hit should also increase or decrease. However it is important to adjust the kill for the number of miles driven on the highways. Thus, kill per million vehicle miles provides a suitable index. One big advantage of this survey is the fact that roads are well distributed throughout the state. This wide distribution along with year-round traffic should provide good coverage of the entire state. Another advantage was that the information was readily available since our officers were required to handle all dead deer. This worked well back in the 50's and 60's when a deer accident was rare.

However as the number of accidents increased the burden placed upon our officers became too large. Beginning in 1985 the chore was officially shared with the DOT. Conservation Officers still handle deer that someone wants to salvage, but when the deer is left along the road the DOT maintenance crew has to deal with it. They keep a separate set of records for these deer. The final tally for the year is made combining both sources of information. Other factors which probably affect the roadkill include extremes in weather such as the flood of 1993, changes in speed limits and changes in the landscape such as we've experienced with the CRP Willie J. Suchy, Wildlife Biologist, Iowa DNR


Car-deer crashes are an index of the population. By examining the change in car-deer crashes for an area from one year to the next, an independent measure of the change in population can be determined. This method will not tell you anything about the actual number of deer, just whether that number has increased, decreased, or stayed the same. The number is reported as the number of crashes by county per million miles driven. This allows the index to take into account changes in the number of cars on the road, any change in the average number of miles driven per person, any change in the miles of road available to drive on (new roads or road closures) and any change in road type. This index is provided by the State Police, who compile this information from all law enforcement agencies and the Michigan Department of Transportation who manages the state’s roads Justin S. Hall, MSU extension.