Wolves and the Decline in Deer-Vehicle Collisions

[SEWIGuy]

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/22/e2023251118

"Recent studies uncover cascading ecological effects resulting from removing and reintroducing predators into a landscape, but little is known about effects on human lives and property. We quantify the effects of restoring wolf populations by evaluating their influence on deer—vehicle collisions (DVCs) in Wisconsin. We show that, for the average county, wolf entry reduced DVCs by 24%, yielding an economic benefit that is 63 times greater than the costs of verified wolf predation on livestock. Most of the reduction is due to a behavioral response of deer to wolves rather than through a deer population decline from wolf predation. This finding supports ecological research emphasizing the role of predators in creating a "landscape of fear."  It suggests wolves control economic damages from overabundant deer in ways that human deer hunters cannot."

[kalvado]

I was told that number and activity of hunters is way  down, contributing to growth of deer population

[3467]

Hunting mostly feed was up last year but returned to a decline this year.
Deer are being effected by EHD a judge disease.
Collisions are down but yes it would be good to have more wolves. There absence has affected the whole candid community.
There is 300 million inconsistencies to study says to cut roadkill. I would like nightvision. I have back up might vision.

[MikieTimT]

So, they seem to suggest that reintroducing wolves is a net positive financial benefit to society in the form of the presence of wolves year around changing the behavior of the deer, making them less prone to road crossings.  I hypothesize that increasing bag limits and the length of the season by several months could accomplish the same, regardless of whether there are fewer deer hunters to control populations of deer.  Now lets see some forward thinking state wildlife management agency conduct this study, in the name of controlling CWD spread as well as the DVCs studied here.

[SEWIGuy]

Wisconsin's deer population is also hugely affected by the severity of winter, and outside of 2018-19, they have been quite mild lately.

[triplemultiplex]

Wow, fascinating study.  Skimming the abstract, the study period covers 1988 to 2010, so that should allow the researchers to control for the possible effects of CWD.  That should not have much of an impact anyway since CWD first manifest in southern Wisconsin in the early 00's and took years to find its way into northern deer populations.

The simple fact is deer are overpopulated in most of Wisconsin.  The can graze at their leisure and eat the shit out of everything they can reach.  They grow fat on farmers' crops.  They over-browse the forest floor.  With an apex predator like wolves on the prowl, the deer have to be alert for them.  They hear and smell them and they are compelled to keep moving to stay one step ahead of the predator.  This gives the vegetation time to recover from deer feeding and decreases the impact deer have on the landscape, thus freeing more resources for other species.  Most importantly, there are certain tree species that cannot get seedlings to grow because the high deer population means all of them get eaten before they grow out of their reach.

In the end it's a pretty straightforward result: fewer deer = fewer deer hit by cars.  But it's the quantifying of the cost of that reduction that is most interesting.  Especially in the context of farmers whining about wolves eating cows.  It shows it is well worth it for society as a whole simply to pay those farmers for their losses.  It suggests to me that we'd still come way out ahead if we payed those farmers to put up fences to keep the wolves out of their pastures.  Modern dairy farms, the most common type of cattle farm in northern Wisconsin, the cows spend most of their time in small pastures to begin with, so it shouldn't be hard to throw up a couple of fences and reduce predation dramatically.  Given the cost savings in reduced car crashes, this seems like a win-win.

[skluth]

Wolves rarely will go after cattle unless they learn it. They don't instinctually attack cattle but will if farmers illegally dispose their cows. Wolves eat carrion and if they discover a dead, rotting cow they'll eat it. They'll also learn the smell of cattle just like dogs learn the scent of anything they're supposed to track, but now that wolf will attack dairy cows because it knows dead cow is yummy. They learned this last century in Minnesota.

The main benefit as others have said is it forces deer to change their behavior. It's unrelated to transportation but there are some great videos on how reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone benefited the environment far beyond the culling of overpopulated wolf prey.

[SEWIGuy]

Wow, fascinating study.  Skimming the abstract, the study period covers 1988 to 2010, so that should allow the researchers to control for the possible effects of CWD.  That should not have much of an impact anyway since CWD first manifest in southern Wisconsin in the early 00's and took years to find its way into northern deer populations.

The simple fact is deer are overpopulated in most of Wisconsin.  The can graze at their leisure and eat the shit out of everything they can reach.  They grow fat on farmers' crops.  They over-browse the forest floor.  With an apex predator like wolves on the prowl, the deer have to be alert for them.  They hear and smell them and they are compelled to keep moving to stay one step ahead of the predator.  This gives the vegetation time to recover from deer feeding and decreases the impact deer have on the landscape, thus freeing more resources for other species.  Most importantly, there are certain tree species that cannot get seedlings to grow because the high deer population means all of them get eaten before they grow out of their reach.

In the end it's a pretty straightforward result: fewer deer = fewer deer hit by cars.  But it's the quantifying of the cost of that reduction that is most interesting.  Especially in the context of farmers whining about wolves eating cows.  It shows it is well worth it for society as a whole simply to pay those farmers for their losses.  It suggests to me that we'd still come way out ahead if we payed those farmers to put up fences to keep the wolves out of their pastures.  Modern dairy farms, the most common type of cattle farm in northern Wisconsin, the cows spend most of their time in small pastures to begin with, so it shouldn't be hard to throw up a couple of fences and reduce predation dramatically.  Given the cost savings in reduced car crashes, this seems like a win-win.

The $10,000+ that my insurance company is about to pay to the autobody place after a deer collision would have bought a lot of fencing!

[Scott5114]

Maybe not as much as you think...fencing is strangely expensive. A project I'm working on requires something like 250' of 8' fence... $7,000, last I ran the numbers (and that was before the supply chain nonsense started).

I wonder how much it costs to procure a wolf.