Animals gone wild

November 2, 2012, 8:08 p.m. ET
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America Gone Wild

The good news: Wildlife populations in the U.S. have experienced an astonishing resurgence. The bad news: All those animals are now our neighbors.

...Welcome to the nature wars, in which Americans fight each other over too much of a good thing—expanding wildlife populations produced by our conservation and environmental successes. We now routinely encounter wild birds and animals that our parents and grandparents rarely saw. As their numbers have grown, wild creatures have spread far beyond their historic ranges into new habitats, including ours. It is very likely that in the eastern United States today more people live in closer proximity to more wildlife than anywhere on Earth at any time in history.

In a world full of eco-woes like species extinctions, this should be wonderful news—unless, perhaps, you are one of more than 4,000 drivers who will hit a deer today, or your child's soccer field is carpeted with goose droppings, or feral cats have turned your bird feeder into a fast-food outlet, or wild turkeys have eaten your newly planted seed corn, or beavers have flooded your driveway, or bears are looting your trash cans. And that's just the beginning.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204846304578090753716856728.html

Deer-Car Crashes Rise on Mild Winter, Led by W. Virginia
By Susanna Pak - Oct 23, 2012 8:53 AM PT

U.S. motorists have had more mishaps tied to deer, led by crashes in West Virginia, according to State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., the biggest U.S. home and car insurer.

Drivers had 1.23 million such collisions in the 12 months ended June 30, about 7.7 percent more than a year earlier, Bloomington, Illinois-based State Farm said in a statement today. The increase followed a three-year period in which the accidents slipped 2.2 percent and may have been fueled by a mild winter in the U.S.

“Last deer season was an extremely warm season across much of the country, and then we had a super, super easy winter,” Kip Adams, a director at the Quality Deer Management Association, said in an interview before the report was released. “We likely have more deer across much of the United States this year than we did last year.”

Drivers in West Virginia are the most prone to the collisions, with 1 in 40 motorists likely to strike a deer in the next 12 months, State Farm said. That’s up from 1 in 48.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-23/deer-car-crashes-rise-on-mild-winter-led-by-w-virginia.html

Texas Feral Hog Wrecks Mark Losing Battle With Animals
By David Mildenberg - Nov 27, 2012 9:01 PM PT
Even before the fastest highway in the U.S. opened, collisions began. Feral hogs were on the move.

Police report at least four such wrecks on the 85 mile (137 kilometer) per hour stretch since traffic began flowing Oct. 24. Texas A&M University professor Billy Higginbotham offered a sympathetic ear when roadway managers called him weeks earlier about the pigs, which can top 400 pounds (180 kilograms).

“They said, ‘We’ve already hit seven or eight pigs at a maximum speed of 45 mph, so what’s going to happen when people are driving 80 or 85,’” said Higginbotham, who has studied feral hogs for 25 years. Workers were testing the $1.3 billion part of State Highway 130, an Austin bypass for Dallas-San Antonio traffic, before opening it when the accidents happened.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-28/texas-feral-hog-wrecks-mark-losing-battle-with-animals.html

This is likely due to poor placement of animal crossing signs.

It most certainly is! They should place those signs where it is safer to cross.

(The funny part is that some people actually believe that.)