Carl Wagner was on his way home in November 2021 when a deer suddenly leaped a guardrail and darted in front of his Ford pickup.
The buck was thrown into the air, then walked a little way and died beside the road. Luckily, Wagner, a member of the Maryland Wildlife Advisory Commission and head of the Maryland Sportsmen’s Foundation, was OK, but his F-150 sustained $6,000 in damages.
November is the peak of deer breeding season, a period marked by increased deer activity starting in late October and lasting until mid-December. Deer breeding season, also known as the rut, brings an increase in deer-vehicle collisions across Maryland.
According to Jonathan Trudeau, game mammal section leader for the Maryland Department of Natural Resource Wildlife and Heritage Service, deer behavior is riskier during the breeding season.
“During that period, males are pushing females around, they themselves are running across areas that they otherwise wouldn't have, they take riskier actions that they probably normally wouldn't,” Trudeau said. “It's because those males are actively pursuing females and females are being chased by males in the attempt to breed them.”
This increase in deer activity in the later months of the year puts drivers at higher risk for deer-vehicle collisions. Deer are most active in the early morning hours between 5 and 8 a.m. and again between 5 and 8 p.m.
To avoid striking a deer during these busy commuting hours, Ragina Ali, public and government affairs manager for the Mid-Atlantic American Automobile Association, recommends continuously sweeping your eyes across the road to see if there are signs of animals.
“Deer rarely travel alone, so if you see one, there are likely one or more nearby. If you see one, make sure you slow down,” Ali said. She continued, “If an animal is in your path, make sure you stay in your lane. Swerving away from the animals can not only confuse them, but it can also put you in further danger by putting you in the path of oncoming vehicles.”
While many crashes occur when animals dart in front of a car — like Wagner’s crash — Ali said it’s important to remember that they can also run into the side of a car.
Maryland ranked 28th in the country in animal collisions, according to State Farm Insurance Company, with the likelihood of a claim involving an animal at 1 in 116.
According to AAA, the cost of an insurance claim related to animal strikes has increased by nearly 60% in the last five years. The average cost of a claim for an animal-vehicle collision was $3,972 in 2018 and increased to $6,343 in 2022.
While deer activity may rise in the next few months, the statewide deer population has been consistent. Maryland’s deer population peaked in the early 2000s with a herd of nearly 300,000, but has since held steady at about 230,000, Trudeau said.
Deer numbers in Maryland are managed to prevent overpopulation. By maintaining the herd, the Department of Natural Resources can reduce the effect that deer have on the environment and agriculture. The deer population is largely maintained through recreational hunting across the state.
“Hunters act as the top predator of white-tailed deer, and if we do not keep the population in check, the population will boom,” Trudeau said. “And you start to have a cycle where you have so many deer that they would eat themselves out of house and home, and we would see numbers way beyond what would be socially acceptable by the human public.”
“We need to harvest a certain number of deer yearly in order to keep them from overpopulating and damaging crop lands and woodlands,” Wagner said.
During the combined archery, muzzleloader, and firearm seasons last year, 76,687 deer were harvested, an 8% increase over the previous season.
“Hunting is a huge contributor to our deer herd management and success in stabilizing our deer herd in many parts of the state,” Trudeau said. “Without hunters, we would not be able to do that and it's really one of the only effective tools that we have for managing deer at that scale.”
Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry, an organization that allows hunters to bring slain animals into participating butchers to be donated to local food banks across Maryland, sees an increase in donations during the rut.
“The largest concentration of donations comes right after Thanksgiving when firearm season starts,” said Josh Wilson, executive director of the organization. “The bulk of the deer harvest takes place during those couple of weeks.”
During the 2022 to 2023 hunting season, Wilson said, 1,197 deer were donated, and over 35,000 pounds of meat were donated to over 30 Maryland food banks.
Capital News Service is a student-powered news organization run by the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism. For 26 years, they have provided deeply reported, award-winning coverage of issues of import to Marylanders.
Title image: Pond at Pickering Creek Audubon Center, Talbot Co. Photo: Jan Plotczyk