Highways Agency

Introduction

The Deer Initiative

Road traffic accidents involving deer have presented a major and under-recognised problem in Britain for many years. Increases in both the numbers and distribution of deer in Britain, combined with a continuing rise in traffic volume, means that this problem will continue to worsen unless action is taken now. Until the Deer Initiative began this work on behalf of the Highways Agency, there was no system for central collection of data on road traffic accidents involving deer. This lack of information has posed a major handicap to effective management of deer on our roads.

We have collected reports on over 30,500 Deer-Vehicle Collisions (DVCs)  occurring in Britain between January 2000 and December 2005, of which 24,500 reports were from England and 6,060 from Scotland. Our sources included the Police, Local Authorities, Motor Insurance Companies, Trunk Road Maintenance Agents, Council Road Cleansing Departments responsible for clearance of carcasses, RSPCA and other animal welfare organisations. Additional information was provided by those involved in dispatch of injured deer or clearance of carcasses from their own area, such as the Forestry Commission, MoD, the National Trust and private estates. Finally, members of wildlife organisations and the general public were asked to report any deer vehicle incidents or dead deer seen at roadside via a dedicated website www.deercollisions.co.uk by email or post.

Our data provides a far larger sample of DVCs than has been available to any previous assessment of the deer collisions issue in Britain. It is clear however, that even our large annual samples of incidents represent merely a small proportion (most likely less than 20%) of all deer road kills or related incidents nationwide. Estimates of DVCs based on the levels of overlap between deer related incidents reported by differing independent sources indicate that the true toll of DVCs may well exceed 60,000 per year in England alone, and 74,000 for Britain as a whole. Relatively little detailed study has been made of the situation in Wales, but although deer populations are known to be increasing there, it is unlikely that so far DVCs in Wales number more than a few hundred per year.

These figures are far from unusual if seen in the context of other countries in Europe and the US. In Germany, reported DVCs regularly exceed 120,000 per year and are estimated by many to actually lie nearer 200,000, while the most recent figures from North America suggest that close to 1.5M DVCs occur there per year, with several States reporting over 70,000 deer collisions.