What large mammal regularly kills humans in the Eastern United States?
White-tailed deer. Deer do not set out to murder people, as far as anyone knows, but they do jump out in front of vehicles so often that they cause more than a million collisions a year, resulting in more than 200 deaths.
Truly deer are the bane of America. One jumped right in front of me in a leafy suburb less than two years ago! If it had been slightly slower, both I and the deer would have crashed badly.
ReplyDeleteA million deer caused collisions per year, but only 200 human fatalities? That's only a 0.02% risk of death.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how that 0.02% breaks down? I would imagine a big chunk of it is people who don't wear their seat belts, and perhaps another portion might be people who attempt to avoid the deer and end up hitting something else?
I have gone from finding deer delightful to loathing them-- and it's not really their fault, for the most part.
ReplyDeleteWe've removed so much of their habitat that of course they are eating our gardens and wandering our roadways.
However, deer are among the few mammals that reproduce regardless of the environment's ability to support them.
Hence the cute doe who stood on my new lawn 8 summers ago has multiplied to about 10... and that doesn't include the several stags who don't run with the female herd.