Living with Wildlife Advisory Board
It can be easy to feel accosted by signs. As the song goes, “Everywhere a sign, blockin’ out the scenery, breaking my mind.”
Almost as a mental survival strategy, we tune out many signs. There’s only so much room in our brains! But we also need to be smart enough to recognize the important ones.
While there are a lot of them, road signs do need to be read, understood and heeded. “Stop” signs and “one way” signs demand attention for safety reasons. These tend to be low-speed demands, but if we find ourselves suddenly driving the wrong way down a one-way, our heart rates climb, and we do all we can to correct the situation.
Wildlife crossing signs are generally placed on high-speed roads. They flash past, and most of us hardly notice them, even though these are the ultimate in “safety” signs. Hitting even a small deer at highway speeds causes extensive damage to cars and small trucks. Hitting that same deer with a motorcycle may be deadly for the driver. Now, bump it up to a large deer, a large black bear or an elk, and the results get progressively more dangerous and costly.
The La Plata County Living with Wildlife Advisory Board reminds county residents and visitors about driving with wildlife in mind during peak migration periods. We run radio ads, we run newspaper ads and, just recently, we purchased a large banner that will fly over Main Avenue to remind you that, as the calendar turns to the month of May, the area will once again see a major push of mule deer and elk crossing our highways.
The unfortunate reality of our region is that our major highways (160, 550 and 84) bisect our big game’s seasonal ranges. While we do harbor resident herds of mule deer and elk, the vast majority of the estimated 40,000 mule deer and 40,000 elk that make up the herds between Cortez and Pagosa Springs are migratory.
They cross our major highways en masse two times per year, driven by changes in weather and forage palatability. Extensive research has been done across the region by both the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and Colorado Parks and Wildlife that has pin-pointed peak dates when mule deer cross our highways on their spring and fall migrations.
These dates were found to be incredibly consistent in mule deer. Over the 10-year period 2004-13, the average day that mule deer cross U.S. Highway 160 heading north to summer range was May 12. Conversely, on the return trip to winter range, the average day that mule deer crossed Highway 160 heading south was Oct. 24.
Animal-vehicle collision data is spotty, but Colorado Department of Transportation data available online do show clearly that Highway 160 across Southwest Colorado is one of the most dangerous sections of road in the state in terms of vehicles colliding with wildlife, mainly mule deer.
Animal-vehicle collisions can generally be avoided by slowing down highways in the late spring and early fall, especially during low-light hours. Of course, some things simply can’t be avoided, such as the deer that bolts out of the brush at the last possible second and smashes your front quarter panel, but slowing down and driving defensively goes a long way in avoiding these accidents.
The wildlife advisory board, partnering with Parks and Wildlife, is proud to show off its new banner downtown, from Monday to May 18 and from Nov. 9 to Nov. 16. We hope that this banner will not be seen as just another sign, but will, in fact, spark recognition in both locals and visitors that wildlife crossings zones and wildlife crossing signs deserve their attention, for safety’s sake.
Aran Johnson, wildlife biologist for the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, is a member of the La Plata County Living with Wildlife Advisory Board.
