Deer and badger casualties

I had to go to Stranraer yesterday in the van. Coming back along the A75, I counted three dead deer by the roadside, all young ones, in a distance of 50 miles. A couple of miles from home, on a minor road, another deer ran out in front of us, and I had to brake quite hard to avoid it. Plus there are dead badgers on the roadsides every few miles.
Is it an issue in other parts of the country? Quite apart from being sorry for the animals, It’s a hazard on a bike.

Similar attrition rate around here Dave. I live on the edge of Wyre Forest and there is dead wildlife every time I go out. Luckily it’s been a while since anything crossed my path.

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We’ve Roe deer, badgers and Muntjac around the Chilterns. Every time I go out I see one or the other killed. Badgers tend to be nocturnal but early evening or early morning the deer are an hazard. Another hazard we have here are the Red Kites as they feed on the carrion left behind by other road kill.

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We have plenty of Red Kites since they were reintroduced to the area about 15 years ago. There’s a feeding station for them near Laurieston, and they have really multiplied. Although they eat all the cat’s dead mice which I throw out for them, I’ve never seen them feeding on the roads.

They are like a B52 taking off when they get off the road, so slow and massive wings . I’ve nearly hit one in a car and came close on a bike early one morning…!

Yep it’s no better here in Bucks. I now know how to report them to the people who clean up our roads as I’ve reported them so often.
I think number of badgers killed this time of year, spring, might be down to dispersal from the sett as well as young exploring and not being street wise. It’s a sad end.

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Very similar here too, I was thinking the same the other day. I went past a ripe badger without holding my breath in time on the way to work this morning :nauseated_face:.

I’ve only ever seen a badger once when driving home late at night in Winster, Cumbria. It crossed the lane opposite the wee church there. I was surprised how “high on the legs” it was.
They are around here, I’ve seen plenty of setts whilst riding my horse in the forest, but have never seen one.

There’s a citizen science project called The Road Lab that logs roadkill.reports from across the UK and uses the data to report on the problem. It’s been going for some years. It used to be called Project Spattter but I guess at some point hearing about that much dead wildlife takes the humour out of it.

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One thing we don’t see as casualties now is hedgehogs. “Pavement Pizzas “, as we used to call them as they got squashed so flat…
Not sure if that’s linked to an increase in the Red kite population or changes in farming but we don’t see them, dead or alive…

Yes it can happen there.
My VW van and a deer had a hard meeting years ago around Moulin. I was driving at 50 km/h and the deer jumped from the roadside directly in front of the van, he didn’t had time to touch the floor. He died as he hit the van.
Hopefully the van was a rear engine one, but a lot of work was necessary to repair.