Published: January 11, 2009 09:19 pm      

Panel wants study of deer-vehicle crashes

CHARLESTON — A legislative panel agreed Sunday the Legislature needs to take a long, in-depth look at the rising and expensive problem of highway crashes with deer in West Virginia.

Records kept by the state insurance commissioner’s office show that one in 63 highway accidents in this state involves a deer.

Nationally, it is estimated that some 1.5 million such collisions occur annually, causing an economic loss of between $1 billion and $2 billion, the Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources Subcommittee said.

Without dissent, the panel, by resolution, called on the Joint Committee on Government and Finance to study the matter and form public-private partnerships between the state and insurance carriers to deal with it.

Assistant wildlife chief Paul Johansen earlier gave a detailed report on various counter-measures states have taken to warn motorists when deer approach in a meadow or emerge from a forest.

So far, however, the jury is out on high-tech devices that include signs that flash warnings to motorists.

One device that made the rounds involved a whistle mounted on the hood of a motor vehicle.

“I saw one the other day that cost $140,” noted one panelist, Delegate Brady Paxton, D-Putnam. “And it looked like something off a pipe organ.”

Johansen suggested the whistles are useless in attempting to frighten deer away from a road.

“The whistles don’t work,” he said.

In its resolution, the subcommittee pointed out that instruments used in other states have been proven to be equally futile, but some devices do shows signs of promise.

“The complexity and interdisciplinary nature of the deer-vehicle collision problem and its countermeasures requires adequate research, development of effective partnership and appropriate exchange of information and technology,” the panel said.

The resolution called on use of the expertise by the Rahall Appalachian Transportation Institute, the Divisions of Forestry and Natural Resources, the insurance commissioner, the Department of Transportation, and insurance firms.

A report by the committee should be issued in the 2009 legislative session, the panel said.

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On another matter, Johansen said it doesn’t appear the state can eradicate chronic wasting disease, which now has surfaced in 37 deer in Hampshire County — the only region with sickened animals.

“If there was something we could do, we’d do it,” he said. “I’m not sure we’ll ever get rid of it. I think our best hope is to contain the spread of it.”

Always fatal to deer, CWD has never been shown to be harmful to humans, however.

Johansen told the panel hunters bagged 68,540 bucks last fall in the two-week firearm season, up 2 percent from the previous year.

Bow hunters took 30,749, compared to 27,440 in the 2007 season. Hunters bagged 54,704 antlerless deer, as opposed to 43,626 in the preceding year, and muzzleloader kills numbered 8,378, contrasted with 7,658 in 2007.

Turkey kills fell from 1,511 in the fall season of 2007 to 1,267 last year, which Johansen attributed to poor broods and abundant food supplies that prompted flocks to spread.

Doe seasons this year will either be expanded or curtailed as the herd populations dictate in specific counties, he said.

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And the subcommittee paid tribute to a late member, Delegate Bill Proudfoot, D-Randolph, who died in a Dec. 23 highway accident.

“This is a sad part of the meeting,” a co-chairman, Sen. John Pat Fanning, D-McDowell, said, as he read a resolution commending Proudfoot’s work

“He was a kind, cheerful, thoughtful person, who was always gracious,” Fanning said. “He was a character. He was knowledgeable, he was funny, and he was always working.”

— E-mail:

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