Why are there so many dead deer bodies on the Merritt?
My wife hit a deer on the Merritt once, and I drive it to work every day. If you hit a deer, chances are your car isn’t all that drivable anymore. You, or a cop, are going to be stopped there. You, or a cop, are going to get the deer out of the road, if it didn’t fly off the road when hit. But you, or a cop, are not going to dispose of the body. It stays there until some different division comes along and cleans it up.
Often deer and other animals are clipped by cars and trucks, which is enough to fatally injure them but does not mutilate them, and either have enough momentum or panicked strength left to limp or drag themselves out of the line of traffic, or are flung a small distance by the force of the impact. They then die of massive internal bleeding — hence the lack of blood — and other internal trauma, along the shoulder or in the highway median. Also note that the plural of deer is deer.
Speaking as the son of a professional “deer hitter”…. My Dad would purposefully hit any deer that crossed our path. The reason was, as someone earlier suggested, that we got to keep the deer once the proper reports were taken. Deer was a main meat source for us back then. When he got tired of jacking up all of our vehicles (we had a lot of one head lighted cars) he actually rigged the front of our truck with a spring loaded cattle guard so the deer would be tossed to the ground and he could purposefully run it over. You see, many times when you hit a deer, it simply gets up and wonders off. Like others have said, no visible wounds etc. A couple of other notes as to why you may see more now than at other times… Could there be construction in the surrounding areas? Here we are noticing in a nearby neighborhood that deer are beginning to be a nuisance in yards and streets because they are being driven out of their normal area by road construction. Also, deer season gets them on the move
Although the “dead deer not all mangled” part of this question seems to be sufficiently answered, I’d also like to chime in and mention that deer also have been known to run into the side of cars in addition to being hit by them. I speak from experience. I imagine the thought process is something along the lines of “running running running, woods woods woods, running running running, woods road OH SH-! *thud*” Thinking about the Merritt, with its fast speeds, high traffic and path-through-the-forest design, I’m thinking this happens pretty frequently.
