Washington
Related: About this forumTired of car-deer collisions, she's taken warning drivers into her own hands
A dedicated resident has taken it upon herself to try to curb deer-car collisions in Bellingham.
I initially saw a deer get hit on Electric Street and it was just really awful, said Susan Kane-Ronning, a Bellingham psychologist. She said it was traumatic to have to wait for a police officer to come and kill the injured deer.
She recently placed eight signs along streets that she found to have high concentrations of deer and vehicle collisions. Some of those signs were placed on Barkley Boulevard, North Shore Drive, Alabama Street and in the Edgemoor neighborhood.
Kane-Ronning said she spent the last four years reaching out to the state wildlife agency and the mayor with the hope that the city would use data to identify areas where deer frequently cross roads and are hit by cars and try to reduce collisions.
Unsatisfied with the citys responsiveness to the issue, Kane-Ronning decided to try and identify some collision hot-spots herself. She used maps created by the WSDOT, which showed where more than 350 deer carcasses had been removed over the last 3 years. Although it is unclear if all the deaths were from traffic collisions, as some of the causes of death are unknown, she said a clustering of deaths in places such as Electric Street and Lakeway Drive is evident.
After looking at maps of the data, Kane-Ronning noticed that the collisions appeared to be clustered in areas where deer pass through wildlife corridors. A wildlife corridor is a path used by animals to move between their habitats, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
She decided to place warning signs to alert drivers that deer frequently cross in those areas. The first eight signs, which cost nearly $500 in total, were funded by volunteers and approved by the citys public works department, Kane-Ronning said.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/tired-of-car-deer-collisions-shes-taken-warning-drivers-into-her-own-hands/ar-AAHnoIk
cilla4progress
(24,589 posts)hubby hit a deer (a fawn actually; and it hit him!. Fawn died instantly.) on his motorcycle last month, driving home from work on our rural road. Spent a night in ICU with a lacerated spleen and 7 broken ribs!
He's on the mend. Doing amazing for a silver-haired god...as he is.
I saw a car and deer last week on the highway, that had just been hit. Slowly dying in the lane of traffic. Traumatic - sad - indeed. Great volunteer work by Kane-Ronning!
cilla4progress
(24,589 posts)I know a woman with same 1st two names there - it must be her! She's the sister of a conservative attorney I once worked for, and the daughter of a wonderful progressive elder (now deceased) who became my friend through the liberal Unitarian Fellowship where I live! I'm sure it's her!
The attorney used to compare me to her...disparagingly. But we too became friends, though somewhat superficially.