Yesterday I had a close encounter with an animal of the same kind you see here. Though briefly shaken, I was unconcerned until I read in AARP Magazine’s July/August issue (sorry, story not available online) that deer account for more human deaths in the U.S. than any other animal. Dogs? Shark attack? Not even close.
Here is the breakdown, with the number of human deaths per year:
- Deer – 150
- Dogs – 18
- Snakes – 15
- Sharks – 2
- Bears – .5
Now, I am sympathetic with those who would put deer into a different category because, after all, they don’t really "kill" people (or do they?…). I am even reluctant to call them a nuisance when we are the ones driving into them at half-a-hundred miles per hour. I would sure rather die in a collision with a deer than be mauled to death by zombie dogs.
Still, I didn’t know there were so many human deaths associated with deer wrecks. As Michelle has said, be careful out there.
I don’t know how there can be a half death due to a bear.
Just one more reason to support your friendly, neighborhood dear hunter.
Deer, rather.
A friend of mine narrowly missed death by deer a number of years ago. She & her brother were driving to a favorite family camping destination in N. California in her Honda Civic when a buck with quite a large rack dashed out & crossed the 2-lane rural highway. She said it filled the entire windshield of the car! Her brother was driving & had to pull over for a while so they could both calm down. Frightened the dookiee outta them!
I travel over Donner Summit on Hwy 80 in California weekly. I’m always on the lookout for deer. I’ve seen 3 in the last month or so. One was dead on the side of the road. Prior to that, I hadn’t seen any since August.
Not to discount the tragedy of fatalities, but I bet a much more interesting statistic is the financial cost of damage to vehicles caused by those darn deer smashing up front-ends and windows, or spooking drivers and causing them to drive into parked cars, trash cans, trees, rocks, and roll-over.
Dogs don’t do nearly so much damage to cars.
Squirrels do even less.
I say that if deer want to be on the highways of America, they should get a license.
(The reason that bear only account for 0.5 fatalities is that they couldn’t find the other half.)
“they don’t really “kill” people (or do they?…)”
I’ve always wondered about this…
Deer are not dumb. The see you sneaking up on them in the woods, they run. Why, when they see a giant, hulking thing barreling at them, then, do they not move? It makes no sense. I think they are assassins of a sort, that mother nature (or some other sinister (or possibly benevolent, with a higher purpose) force) sends our way…
That Easter Bunny…does his evil know no limits?
Yes, deer are the Antlered Servants of the Easter Bunny.
That’s why Goodness and Right requires us to shoot them to keep their population in check or they will overwhelm the world and engulf mankind–just as the Eastery Bunny desires.
The night before I moved away to college, my Dad sat me down at the ice cream place and said ” Now there are a few things that I want to remind you of before you are on your own.” I expected this talk, but the surprise was the one thing that he said most worried him. – Drive very carefully on rainy roads and watch for a deer on the side of the road that might dart in front of you. – no warnings of skipping class, boys, parties, money – just deer and rain! Turns out, he was right, as three friends totalled their cars in my freshman year alone due to deer – luckily no one was seriously injured!
I remember seeing a museum exhibit on sharks years ago. There was a tidbit showing how there were far more people killed in the world each year by pigs than by sharks.
What about cows? Yes, I know we don’t have wild cows roaming about, but a lot of cows find a way out of fences when there is rainy/cold/stormy weather. We hit a black angus steer at night (didn’t see him at all) going 65 miles an hour. We were fine, but the mini van was totaled and the poor cow didn’t make it.
That was me about the cow.
Also . . . I was driving back from Boulder, CO after a Summer working at the Shakespeare festival there back in 1992. I decided to take HWY 50 – the Lonliest Highway in the USA – back to Cali ‘cos I’d never driven it. Most of 50 is open range &, frankly, really pretty, in a desert-ey sorta way. I was very late & very dark &, even though there was a mostly full moon, I really couldn’t see much ahead of me. 50 was taking a lazy curve to the right & all of a sudden in my headlights I saw a lone doe standing right in my lane. No warning. I swerved into the opposing lane & . . . there was a second deer, a buck this time, so I swerved back to my own lane & was greeted by . . . another doe! All this going 70mph in a 1985 Nissan pickup, loaded to the gills with 2 people’s stuff! It’s hard to say goin’ that fast but there was no more than 100 yards between each deer.
I know that this is not in America, but I was surprised to find out which animal kills the most people in the world.
the deadliest animal in the world is:
hippopotamus
Here in the great state of NJ, deer (and more and more these days, bears) are a huge problem. There’s not a lot of vast open space, go figure, here for them to roam. I have no close calls to report personally, but a lady was killed by a deer collision in Mendham (a borough about 10 mi west of here) a few years back.
I suppose a mature buck could easily kill (intentionally) a human if it was disposed to do so, but they tend to keep themselves farther back in the woods than the does and fawns. I remember seeing video footage of a buck attacking a hunter that got too close… Ha! Probably landed a bullet in a non-lethal location… dork.
I also hear tell that the number one worldwide animal killer of humans is by far the mosquito, by spreading malaria (over 1,000,000/yr I think)… or do we credit the bacteria for such kills? Doh, bacteria aren’t animals… And apparently the number one killer by outright attacks is the hippopotamus… the cute little hippo of children’s literature… go figure! Nice wittow hippo… Johnny go pet the nice hippo, we’ll take a picture. Gah!!
Cheers!
“The reason that bear only account for 0.5 fatalities is that they couldn’t find the other half.”
LOL! That is probably more true than we might like to think!