berkeleying Deer!

So my dad was taking his newly acquired 2007 Cayman S to its first track event yesterday at NJMP.  I get a text from him about 7:45.  "Good news, bad news. Good news is the car is drivable. Bad news is I hit a deer. Left front dent. Headlight cover broken. Small dent in door."

He spent all winter going over this car with a fine tooth comb and only driven it a couple of times before this event as his shake down.   Good news is the car ran flawlessly at the track, and he couldn't stop gloating about it when I spoke with him last night.  He said he avoided 4 out of 5 deer and was lucky the 5th was more of a glancing blow and it ran into him.  The deer ran away too.  He already has body shop recommendations. 

I asked him if he was going to have venison for dinner.  

That sucks.  They are a major problem around here.  I've taken out 2 with a Lexus at a thousand bucks a pop and nudged one with the side mirror on an AE92.  I think that Modern Rifle deer season should be like 50 weeks a year.  Of course, my neighbors think it's that way already.

Dr. Hess  FWIW, our hunting laws actually create more deer. As do our lifestyles. Being from upstate NY, you learn to know where migratory paths are and to slow down during hunting/mating season, yup, they're at the dame time, or become best friends with the body man. 

Sorry about the accident. Glad no one was hurt and the deer survived. Put it down to track running damage. No different than a bonehead running along side you.

BTDT, repeatedly. I second the 50 week rifle season. Cayuga Heights in Ithaca, NY has the worst overpopulation in the country, IIRC. A friend of mine is involved with the culling programs for both Ithaca and Cornell. He was taking 2 a week for a while. 

My insurance company did not raise my rates after my deer hit of 5k on my truck. I was told it’s beyond my control no increase. Hopefully your dads insurance is the same. 

Hitting wildlife has different rule from hitting another car.

markwemple said:

Dr. Hess  FWIW, our hunting laws actually create more deer. As do our lifestyles.

I'd love to hear more about how this works...

1988RedT2 said:

markwemple said:

Dr. Hess  FWIW, our hunting laws actually create more deer. As do our lifestyles.

 

I'd love to hear more about how this works...

Me too, and I'm not being sarcastic. I'm genuinely curious.

I’ve hit a deer driving home after an HPDE weekend. Actually, an SUV (ahead of me and one lane over) hit the deer ... which launched it sideways and under my car. The impact pushed the front sway bar back, which cracked a hole in my sump.

Also had the pleasure of driving to Canada for a vintage race weekend at Mosport. Stopped for gas in upstate New York and a yokel backed his Ford F-250 over my front end. Smushed the whole thing.

Guess I should start towing the car to events LOL

Daylan C said:

1988RedT2 said:

markwemple said:

Dr. Hess  FWIW, our hunting laws actually create more deer. As do our lifestyles.

 

I'd love to hear more about how this works...

Me too, and I'm not being sarcastic. I'm genuinely curious.

You buy a nice sized lot out in the suburbs and landscape it with flowering bushes and trees.  You have just created a perfect feed patch for deer to browse in.  My sister-in-law is going to redo all the landscaping at her house because the deer are eating everything she had planted.

Hal said:

Daylan C said:

1988RedT2 said:

markwemple said:

Dr. Hess  FWIW, our hunting laws actually create more deer. As do our lifestyles.

 

I'd love to hear more about how this works...

Me too, and I'm not being sarcastic. I'm genuinely curious.

You buy a nice sized lot out in the suburbs and landscape it with flowering bushes and trees.  You have just created a perfect feed patch for deer to browse in.  My sister-in-law is going to redo all the landscaping at her house because the deer are eating everything she had planted.

 

 

 

Ya and as we develop more and more of the woodlands into suburbia the deer are squeezed into smaller and smaller spaces. Here in the Southeast Detroit area I have actually seen deer walking along the freeway in completely developed areas with nowhere to go. Last year I was at a local mall and came across a giant toad in the middle of the paved parking lot. Just north of the mall they basically had clear cut a giant section of trees and filled in a wetland to put up condos driving all the wildlife out. The poor toad was completely lost and driven out of it's home.I cleared out my console in the car, put the toad in there and headed north for a bit and dropped it off by a river in a wooded area. I know many will think this is crazy but nature deserves a place too and sadly eventually there won't be any place left.

The hunting laws make more deer by only allowing you to kill them (legally, unlike my neighbors) for a couple weeks a year with modern rifles.  More with bows, a little more with muzzle loading rifles or handguns, etc., depending on where you live.  In some states, IL, IN or MI, I forget, you can only kill the bastards with a straight wall cartridge.  No bottleneck cartridges, like a 30-06, 308, 7mm Mauser, etc., like God Intended, but only with straight wall cartridges.  So, 44 Magnum OK, 300 Winchester Magnum, no-no.  WTF?  Anyway, limiting the harvesting like that allows the bastards to procreate until you kill more with a Lexus than with a rifle.  Here in Arkansas, deer outnumber humans and Lexus season is year round.  If you tag one with a Lexus, you call it in and they let you bring it home and eat it. 

Last year, our apple tree had one apple.  I was keeping an eye on it and it was just about ready to pick.  Went out to get it and a deer had eaten it that morning.

Ohio is shotgun or straight walled cartridge only. Tags limit the number of deer killed, they want a healthy population so tag numbers vary as expected and projected populations change. Many hunters set out food plots around here, that helps with keeping the population up, providing them with extra nutrition. Alot of local hunters believe that the enhanced corn that the deer naturally feed on in this area is causing a larger population. 

I hit one with my old cop car. 

I want to build a big fabricated bull bumper.  I will never lift again. If I meet a suicidal deer, I'll send it to hell.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

It's a bit long but, PA and NY have intentionally (other states too but I covered these in law school) developed the timing of the season and the limits to increase populations. Hunting is a business. Anyway, deer live on woods edges. Farms are a classic example of a perfect habitat for deer. Suburban areas, with the available year round food also promote groth in populaions. Combine that with our insane need to kill their natural predators and....

I've lived near Ithaca. The culling, intentionally, doesn't work.

Heck, introduce their natural predators and stop hunting and balance would occur.

In reply to Feedyurhed :

Crazy? You won’t hear that from me, I do the same things. Good for you!

In reply to markwemple :

We had coyotes chase a deer right through a basement window (in my town, not me). Owner wrastled it out of his laundry room and up his bulkhead. Most likely right into the coyotes.

We have a ton of deer where I am at in the SF bay area.  I literally see a deer everyday, eat everything. Cars are the apex predator for deer, no hunting.  

Appleseed said:

I hit one with my old cop car. 

I want to build a big fabricated bull bumper.  I will never lift again. If I meet a suicidal deer, I'll send it to hell.

I've contemplated this and I wonder how to build it in a manner to Withstand a deer impact at speed and not damage the vehicle at the mounting points. The energy has to go somewhere, because you know, physics .

I'm thinking 1/4 to  3/16. As long as you can keep them from coming through the windshield, that much steel should do the trick, especially if it's mounted like a snow plow. 

Over 12 years of ownership my wife's saturn has taken out 3 deer. All along roads we normally travel and it's the only vehicle we have hit one with!

Brian said:

Appleseed said:

I hit one with my old cop car. 

I want to build a big fabricated bull bumper.  I will never lift again. If I meet a suicidal deer, I'll send it to hell.

I've contemplated this and I wonder how to build it in a manner to Withstand a deer impact at speed and not damage the vehicle at the mounting points. The energy has to go somewhere, because you know, physics .

I think it would need to be mounted to some sort of hydraulic system tha can absorb some of the impact.  Kinda like a battering ram... 

I've been lucky over the years - especially since so many were spend commuting through central NJ deer country.  Only hit one - a fawn - which killed said fawn and did minimal damage to my TDI.  This is one reason why I've taken to driving my minivan so much. I consider it essentially an expendable appliance compared to my other cars.  It's an annoying balance.

And yes - bow season should be 365 days a year... 

Years ago, my dept manager (from Louisiana) was a big hunter who lived in a more rural area of north-western NJ.  I spotted a deer munching on his freshly planted flowers.  Took it out with his rifle from his back porch.  His wife was not amused... 

Dr. Hess said:

 No bottleneck cartridges, like a 30-06, 308, 7mm Mauser, etc., like God Intended, but only with straight wall cartridges.  So, 44 Magnum OK, 300 Winchester Magnum, no-no.  WTF? 

Here where I live in Ohio corn country even the rural areas aren't that rural anymore. There aren't too many roads that don't have at least one house every quarter mile. Most are lined with 2-3 acre lots. It is mostly small woods with big open fields with nothing to slow a bullet down. So having people out shooting rifles like a 30-06 that have a bullet that will go several miles isn't a great idea. 

thankfully the deer in NJ are more the size of large dogs, but yes, they are everywhere. I was out by NJMP last week, they were all over.

Pish posh.  A few years back, I hit one going 25 on a bicycle.  Broke ribs, helmet, and shed a square foot of skin spread across multiple body parts.  My one and only experience with Oxy.

I think they've become the leading cause of serious sheet-metal damage at my local track, Summit Point.  Check the exploding deer vid at the top of this discussion:  https://dorkiphus.net/porsche/showthread.php?t=32914

In reply to Brian :

A shout-out for Cayuga Heights Elementary School!  Class of '75.