Deer-Vehicle Collisions along Interstate Highways in Missouri

Although landscape fragmentation for human benefit is a daily occurrence, these alterations can have negative effects on people and animals. Roadways are a major source of human-wildlife conflict; often resulting in property... [ view full abstract ]

Although landscape fragmentation for human benefit is a daily occurrence, these alterations can have negative effects on people and animals. Roadways are a major source of human-wildlife conflict; often resulting in property damage, human injury and death, including loss of animals. Although many wildlife-related accidents are unreported, those involving deer can be dangerous and expensive. In 2014-2015, State Farm Insurance estimated the average cost of a vehicular accident involving deer was $4,135. Nationwide expenditures for deer-vehicle collisions are over $1 billion each year. Missourians have a 1 in 120 chance of having a deer-vehicle accident, making it the 17^th most likely state for this type of collision. The majority of crashes occur during the rut, which also coincides with the hunting season. Deer are most active at dawn and dusk making them highly vulnerable near roadways in the fall – especially at twilight. This study examined vehicle collisions with white-tailed deer on interstate highways in Missouri. Of the nearly 3,000 deer-vehicle collisions on Missouri roadways in 2014, 520 occurred along 1,200 miles of highways in urban, suburban, and rural areas of the state (I-29, I-35, I-44, I-49, I-55, I-57, I-64, I-70, I-155, I-170, I-255, I-270, I-435, and I-470). Longitude and latitude coordinates for each crash site were obtained from the Missouri State Highway Patrol and uploaded into GoogleMaps. Aerial photography and street-side images were used to investigate the possible influence of land use and cover type, water sources, guardrails, cables, slopes, and topography. Preliminary results indicate that natural and manmade corridors played important roles in collision sites, reinforcing the importance of landscape connectivity when predicting the behavioral tendencies of deer. Some implications might be transferrable to developing countries where animal related accidents are an understudied, but growing phenomenon as a result of increased urbanization and vehicular traffic.