OTUS THE HEAD CAT : Hybrid deer, rampant breeding spell disaster for state’s drivers
Posted on Saturday, November 8, 2008
Dear Otus, I knew that it was getting fairly risky driving in deer country in Arkansas, but I was stunned to learn that Arkansans have a one in 108 chance of hitting a deer. That’s mind-boggling. We live in Heber Springs and Arkansas 25 to Batesville is like running a gantlet. There’s a dead deer about every 200 feet and the road is littered with truck bumpers. Can you tell me what’s going on ? — Nathaniel Bumppo,
Heber Springs Dear Natty, It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and thank you for the opportunity to join state officials in warning Arkansans to be vigilant at this time of the year. An unusually aggressive deer rut is under way, making our highways a veritable minefield of hooves and antlers. The statistics, printed last week from State Farm Insurance and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, are sobering, indeed.
They are based on the staggering information that there were 18, 498 collisions between deer and vehicles during the past 12 months in Arkansas. Extrapolating current information and based on the algebraic reliability of Neil’s Semicubical Parabolic Curve, Arkansas is in line to record a minimum of 48, 489 collisions before the year is out.
This can be blamed on global warming, the fact that it’s an election year, the ouster of Chuck Dicus from the Razorback Foundation, a 40-year high in the “hairiness” of woolly worms (catta pilosa ) and the escape of 145 genetically altered bucks from the venison-enhancement experiment at the University of Arkansas’ Tyson Ungulate Husbandry Farm in Rose Bud.
The bucks had been bred to mature earlier and breed faster. The university, using a $ 21 million federal grant, had hoped to partner with Tyson in the cultivation and marketing of domesticated farm-raised venison products along the Pel-Freez Rabbit model.
The 1, 330-acre Rose Bud facility had to be shut down in 2006 when a tornado destroyed a section of the 14-foot electrified razor-wire fence and all the deer, along with 212 beefalo cattle, escaped. The cattle were eventually rounded up, but the deer quickly dispersed.
The altered deer have been breeding with the native whitetail population and are directly responsible for the fact that the worst of the vehicle-deer confrontations have been in Cleburne, Independence and northern Pulaski counties.
Once the hybrid deer get the slightest whiff of a doe in heat, the pheromones drive them to disregard their safety.
At one illegal deer-baiting stand in the woods near Pangburn, Game and Fish officials discovered 27 bucks in a noholds barred throw-down cage match for the “privilege” of mating with a single life-size fiberglass doe archery target with replaceable SuperFlex foam midsection for durability and easy arrow removal.
The target had been doused with Harmon “Triple Heat” premium doe estrus spray. The target, badly mauled and mutilated beyond recognition, had to be humanely destroyed.
The concentration of aggressive, militant, mutant, rutting deer in those three sections of the state means that the chances of hitting a deer on a winding country highway have increased from one in 108 to about one in 10 vehicles.
“It’s madness out there,” said Matt Tralineal, a Game and Fish deer program coordinator. “They’re breeding like stoats and sometimes seem to be deliberately running into cars and trucks.”
Tralineal, who has hit 12 deer, made the statement Tuesday as he stood beside his battered truck at the Cleburne County Deer Roadkill Collection Station at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Heber Springs. The station is one of four where victims of deer collisions can bring deer carcasses to exchange for government coupons. The coupons are worth $ 40 and limited to two per household. They may be redeemed at area retailers to help defray the cost of a government-approved deer catcher. The wedge-shaped device, also available via the Internet, is made of reinforced PVC and bolts to the front bumper of a vehicle to scoop and deflect deer to the side of the road. The three other carcass-collection stations are in Batesville at the city golf course; a temporary trailer at the intersection of Arkansas 107 and 89 six miles west of Cabot and, to handle the Greers Ferry overflow, at the entrance to Camp Bear Track in Drasco. The roadkill will be logged and the meat frozen and shipped to Hunters Without Borders for distribution to those less fortunate. Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that if you see one deer, there may be 27 right behind. Disclaimer: Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat’s award-winning column of
humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. E-mail: mstorey@arkansasonline. com
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