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High fence opinion in specific example???….

Sligh1

Sligh1

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Not the topic you all might think. Not for neighbors or funneling deer…. This is for a farm with a high # of deer / vehicle collisions. It would be: 1 side of road for a bad stretch with one way gates (so panicked deer can escape off the roadway). Both sides of road on some examples I’ve seen would clearly be most effective.
1 objection I see coming into this…. “The purest” …. “Can’t use any methods to un-naturally move deer or block deer” & I get where that comes from- I get it!!! Let me throw a bit of critical thinking into that though… “don’t mess with nature”…. FAIR POINT!!!! What I think is missed there is a few things…. 1) vehicle collisions aren’t exactly “totally natural”. 2) people do get hurt badly or killed from this and so do animals. 3) the more vehicle collisions… the more policy will move to kill more deer “blast em all” which for sure is much more impactful to the resource than fences to stop collisions.
The most effective deer fences are the 2 sides of road in timbered areas. Can see these in various parts of state. Like 90 mins n of Des Moines on I-35 for example or west of Des Moines by greenfield on 80. Tons of examples. Works exceptionally well. Again- needs 1 way gates for escapes.

There’s cost to put it up and Maintain. I’d strongly argue the cost for the fences pays for itself in a matter of a few years in higher collision parts of the road. If I had to take an educated guess…. A mile stretch of fence on 2 sides…. 2 years minimum in damage savings (not accounting for loss of life, injury, policy implementation to kill off wildlife, etc). Knowing what I know on fencing costs vs collision costs. The fence by greenfield has been up for maybe 15-20 years (guess) & I’d easily estimate it’s paid for itself 7-10 times over in that time & has needed little to no maintaining so far …. If averaged it out…. Maybe couple grand a year. There’s also zero doubt in my mind - 70 mph speed limit - in that time some lives or severe injury saved there. Economics of these fences do pencil out is my point.

So- say a dude wanted to fence the road only (on his own dime) for a “bad 1 mile stretch” for the sole reason of stopping or majorly reducing a lot of deer collisions …. Would u be: for, against or neutral and why? Critical thinking needed for sure. What u think?
 
A “single” fence will just alter travel patterns. Look at what the state wasted $$$ wise over along Viking Lake. It was a high collision area and sounded like a good idea. The deer just moved up the road and went around the deterrence. Then the state turned around and spent thousands to remove it.
 
Slick said:
Gay......goes to far......all about the "save my big buck".....way more important things in life
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Fair point. You making out with other guys is also far more gay - so it is a little hypocritical ;).
Chewing on this. K- Saving “my big buck” wouldn’t really be a motive. At least from my POV…. The big ones don’t get hit usually. It’s usually the fawns to 3 year olds. So- it could be “save a buck for later”. But even the does & fawns that get wasted left & right on busy areas…. It bugs me. For just ME…. Not about losing a big buck. Just deer & people colliding is truly the main thought.

seven twenty said:
A “single” fence will just alter travel patterns. Look at what the state wasted $$$ wise over along Viking Lake. It was a high collision area and sounded like a good idea. The deer just moved up the road and went around the deterrence. Then the state turned around and spent thousands to remove it.
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I have not heard that. They actually removed it?!? Wow. The times I’ve seen implemented were to the exit/over pass so really wasn’t a way around it. But ya- that does make sense. I need to look at that example for sure.
 
Personally, I dispise the the thought of building a fence to deter game movement.

I've seen (and have been watching/ seeing more) man made fences on YouTube hunting channels lately that are/ were built for the sole purpose of directing deer traffic to a specific opening.
ANYONE with $ to spend can do that!
No different then put out a cage/ funnel trap in a river to catch fish.

I know that's not the reason you asked but it's just my overall opinion of man made fences to deter wildlife.




If it's a problem area, I'd rather see you have some signs made and put them up along the road stating, " High Traffic Deer Crossing Area next (whatever) miles and let the chips fall where the may.

If deer want to cross the road, they will do so and will have 3 choices.
Find a weak " link" ( no pun intended), or cross where the 2 ends are.
Neighbors will have the perfect ambush spot and I can forsee some greedy attorney making a case to try n prosecute someone doing so if anyone crashes into a deer where the fences end..
I'd say, " Skip" the idea (pun intended).
 
Hopefully the one way gates help. I have a neighbor that has a few screws loose and she put up an 8 foot fence around most of her 40 acre property. It definitely keeps deer from her side crossing the road.. It’s an absolute slaughter for the deer coming from the side of the road my house is on tho. They all run across, come up to her fence, get confused and turn right back into the road. I have no doubt there’d be less deer laying in front of my house every year if the fence was never there.
 
Unless we're talking about miles of continuous fence which is only really possible along the interstate, I say no way. I think it's worth it along problem areas on the interstate for lives saved. I doubt it's effective for short runs on most rural roads. Just like thermal drones, I don't want to see high fences gaining acceptance in any form.

I hate what's happening to deer hunting and high fences are the worst of the worst in my opinion. It's the epitome of greed when it comes to hunting imo.

Maybe we need regulations stating how far away from an impenetrable fence you need to be. The first 1/4 mile from any high fence is an automatic no hunting zone? Kind of like we do with bait but more specific.
 
A guy close to me put up fence around his 160…. Wanted to “keep deer out”…. Well let’s be real, he thought he was starting his own hunting farm and was having people pay to hunt in it. There were holes, deer jumped it- it was a mess. The two problems with any high fence- if a deer is in the ditch (or crosses safely) they might not have anywhere to go for a little ways in either direction so what’s natural- to turn back to the road and give a second chance at getting hit. Otherwise during shotgun, the groups that hunt it push the deer towards the fence and slaughter them- the DNR said there was nothing they could do because they leave the gate open while they do it so it’s “fair chase”…
Signs around here were in the news and had the community in an uproar- but numbers of hit deer sure went down
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I would support the high fence approach along highways or problem area. As far as partial high fence to deter fence from going certain neighbors I really hate to see that , but it is becoming alot more
popular . I have been involved with high fencing “ Bad neighbor” twice . It did solve the problems but i hated the look.
 
Sligh1 said:
There’s cost to put it up and Maintain. I’d strongly argue the cost for the fences pays for itself in a matter of a few years in higher collision parts of the road. If I had to take an educated guess…. A mile stretch of fence on 2 sides…. 2 years minimum in damage savings (not accounting for loss of life, injury, policy implementation to kill off wildlife, etc). Knowing what I know on fencing costs vs collision costs. The fence by greenfield has been up for maybe 15-20 years (guess) & I’d easily estimate it’s paid for itself 7-10 times over in that time & has needed little to no maintaining so far …. If averaged it out…. Maybe couple grand a year. There’s also zero doubt in my mind - 70 mph speed limit - in that time some lives or severe injury saved there. Economics of these fences do pencil out is my point.
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Who is it saving money for? Remember when there was a call to cull the deer herd because of deer/car collision damage? Tons of antlerless tags available. We shot them back into the '70's in regard to population. Did your car insurance premiums go down? So the FB and the car insurance lobby won that one, IMO.
 
i was fishing this Summer in AK they have installed Moose high fence along the Sterling highway between Coopers Landing and Soldatna. They have dirt ramps with about a 8-10 foot drop and the fence on both side to get one out if it got in
 
Gut reaction is a negative one. I know of two different places that did that, one to keep deer off the neighbors and the other to keep deer off the public. Somewhere in this scenario a neighbor would hate you and I wouldn't blame them.
 
seven twenty said:
A “single” fence will just alter travel patterns. Look at what the state wasted $$$ wise over along Viking Lake. It was a high collision area and sounded like a good idea. The deer just moved up the road and went around the deterrence. Then the state turned around and spent thousands to remove it.
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Agreed, ^^ I am certainly not a fencing expert, but my thoughts would be that it would not solve the problem...only move it. Unless there was a viable underpass or overpass, which I believe have been successfully installed in the West to facilitate big game movement across certain highways, I would not think that it would work well enough to be worthwhile.

Now that being said...generally speaking...the state installed "deer crossing" signs tend to be pretty accurately placed IMO. Is there a way to guide a deer a few hundred feet/yards to a better, more visible to drivers, crossing point? This could still reduce deer hits theoretically and not involve big dollars spent on building or maintaining fences...maybe.
 
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JNRBRONC said:
Who is it saving money for? Remember when there was a call to cull the deer herd because of deer/car collision damage? Tons of antlerless tags available. We shot them back into the '70's in regard to population. Did your car insurance premiums go down? So the FB and the car insurance lobby won that one, IMO.
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It’s total damage to vehicles & one could fairly easily get some data on average injuries & health costs related to collisions would be. If one wanted to assign a value for a human casualty…. From an insurance or biz POV - it could be done but clearly the over riding issue there is loss of a human life which is a tragedy in any case it happens.

The only “stretch” or deep thinking needed would be economic value of deer killed which could get into the weeds …. A deer hit by a car will likely have a reasonably low economic value (our deer hunting in iowa is a bare bones minimum of $180m annually). If car deer accidents get to a point where policy is changed…. That could be a % of that $180m - say it causes policy to reduce population by 10% …. It’s in the millions.

Interesting FACT or at least responses from car Insurace companies … as far as I know- they have never lobbied for lower deer #’s. They actually do bake the damages right in to their premiums & the cost is a very tiny amount vs other claims. Heard from high ups at State Farm, American family, etc on this and they have been very clear - they are not lobbying or voicing on policy. Where “kill em all” comes from the wonderful…. farm bureau first & foremost. They use vehicle collision data as a weapon to… “kill em all”. They bring it up and that’s why we hear the most about it. Yes, dnr, cities legislators & public have influence on this but
IMO- it’s a long way behind FB. Maybe some offshoots of that like corn & soy growers assoc or “the angry farmers of Iowa” .. that complain about anything & have too much time on their hands. Farm bureau followed by other orgs is main reason deer collision data will result in more deer shot though. Last fun fact of the day…. Where are 75%++ of complaints of “too many deer” coming from? You guessed it!!!!… northern 2/3rd of the state which has the lowest deer densities!! Ironic example but there were more complaints from one county that had 3 deer per square mile vs a county that had over 25 deer per square mile. U get in these high yield - no deer regions- the acceptability to have ANY deer damage is not tolerated. Like 2 rows of beans nipped that are 20 yards long (we talking a couple dollars MAYBE) - will get calls. Greed & every last nickel illustrated to its finest. Same dudes farming INTO the creeks & same exact dudes putting record nitrates in the water. GREED.
 
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