LANDER -The Cowboy State lost more than $7 million worth of deer last year to vehicle collisions, according to state estimates.

More than 1,800 deer were reported killed by drivers in Wyoming in 2007 - a figure that might represent only half the actual number of deer run down by cars and trucks, an official with the Wyoming Game and Fish department said.

Two people died last year and 156 were injured while traveling in vehicles that hit animals, according to the Wyoming Department of Transportation.

In total, 2,170 pronghorn, deer, elk and moose were reported killed by automobiles last year. And after tallying their restitution values, those animals were worth at least $8.8 million, according to Erin Smith, spokeswoman for the Game and Fish Department's Lander region.

And that figure only includes those collisions that were reported, and which caused damage to vehicles, she said.

"It's probably likely that twice as many got killed as were reported," Smith said.

The Game and Fish Department calculates restitution values for Wyoming's wildlife, which the state uses to establish such things as fines for poaching.

A cottontail rabbit has a restitution value of $200, for example, a grizzly bear is $25,000, a bighorn sheep is $15,000, an elk $6,000 and a deer is worth $4,000, Smith said.

In Wyoming, wildlife is considered the property of the people of the state. Purposely killing an animal illegally amounts to stealing that natural resource from the state.

Drivers on roads and highways are not fined for killing wildlife, as poachers are. But calculating the dollar value of those animals killed is useful, Smith said, because it can help people get a sense of what they are worth to state residents as natural resources.

Oct. 1 - March 1

The Wyoming Department of Transportation and the state's Game and Fish Department are working jointly to combat the growing problem of automobile-wildlife collisions in the Cowboy State, Smith said.

A focal point of the collaboration will be educating the public about vehicle-animal collisions, representatives with both agencies said.

It has become obvious to those involved that without ongoing education, the traditional yellow wildlife signs placed alongside roads and highways are not very effective at reducing collisions, in part because drivers become so habituated to them that they stop heeding them.

On some roads, such as U.S. Highway 30 in Nugget Canyon - where the state has invested about $3.8 million in recent years building fences and six wildlife underpasses - state officials have been able to drastically reduce collisions through long-term research and innovative engineering.

But the best chance at decreasing the number of automobile-wildlife crashes in most other parts of the state will be a change in residents' driving habits, said Cody Beers, a spokesman for WYDOT.

One such area where drivers need to slow down, in general, and be more vigilant about looking for wildlife is in Hot Springs County, Beers said. It's an 18-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 20, between Wind River Canyon and Kirby.

On that section of road, more than 340 mule deer, 29 white-tailed deer and four antelope were killed in 2007, he said.

"During October our maintenance crews picked up 31 deer in that same stretch," Beers said. "That's one deer for every day of the month. Then in November, in the first 20 days, they picked up 29 deer. And those aren't the only animals getting hit and killed; those are just the ones found on the highway."

In the coming years, WYDOT is going to experiment with different strategies to get people to drive more cautiously in known wildlife "hot spots," such as this stretch in Hot Springs County, by using eye-catching "dynamic signs," Beers said. The signs could carry messages such as "Please slow down - 342 mule deer killed in this area last year!"

The vast majority of vehicle-deer collisions in Wyoming happen between Oct. 1 and March 1, Beers said. If people were to drive 10 mph slower, in general, many of these crashes could be avoided, Beers said.

If a driver is unable to avoid hitting a deer because it would be unsafe to swerve, for example, he or she should aim the vehicle at the rear of the animal if possible, he said.

Drivers should also wear seat belts, as it greatly improves the chances of surviving a collision with an animal, Beers said.

While elk herds in most of the state are at or above the Game and Fish Department's population objectives, several mule deer herds have been in decline in recent years. Mule deer are the big game animals most often killed on Wyoming's roads and highways.

In some areas of the state, more deer are now killed annually by automobiles than by hunters, officials said. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department and WYDOT would like to reverse this trend, both for the sake of human safety as well as for the health of the wildlife populations, officials said.

Contact environment reporter Chris Merrill at (307) 267-6722 or chris.merrill@trib.com

SECOND STORY

Nugget Canyon project successful

By CHRIS MERRILL

Star-Tribune environment reporter

LANDER - It took decades of trial and error, eight years of intensive research and millions of dollars. But it appears state officials have successfully turned a highway - which used to be a slaughter zone for several hundred mule deer annually - into a place of relatively safe passage for both animals and drivers.

Nugget Canyon, between Kemmerer and Cokeville in western Wyoming, is smack in the middle of one of the state's largest big game winter ranges, used by the Wyoming Range mule deer population.

U.S. Highway 30, one of Wyoming's busiest highways, bisects that mule deer winter range.

The Wyoming Department of Transportation finished a $3.8 million project in October, which included the construction of miles of fencing and six new wildlife underpasses, officials said.

It appears the construction has reduced automobile-wildlife collisions by perhaps up to 97 percent since its completion, said Mark Zornes, wildlife management coordinator with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's Green River region.

The final touches on the project were finished Oct. 14.

"Since the fence was buttoned up we've lost three deer," Zornes said. "Last year we probably lost 100 during the same time period."

The three deer that have been killed somehow got across double cattle guards at an entryway to a ranch, he said.

"Compared to last year, the losses are almost nonexistent," Zornes said. "We were losing 300 to 500 deer a year on that stretch of highway."

About 7,000 and 10,000 deer cross Highway 30 in Nugget Canyon at least twice a year, he said. The deer are still crossing the road, but now most of them are going underneath it through specially designed tunnels.

Wildlife-proof fences line a stretch of the highway and basically funnel the deer into seven 12-feet-high underpasses. The animals have already taken to using the tunnels, Zornes said.

Game and Fish and WYDOT personnel have been studying the deer migration in the area and analyzing a database of automobile-wildlife crashes since 2000. The underpasses were built, wherever possible, on the sections of the highway most often used by the deer, he said.

John Eddins is a district engineer for WYDOT who has been working along with others in the department on the Nugget Canyon project for years.

Eddins said the project's success is because of the long-standing interdepartmental collaboration, and eight years of patient study and engineering design.

Bill Rudd, an assistant division chief with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, has also been a driving force behind the project for more than a decade, several officials said.

"Nugget Canyon was kind of a unique situation where we'd studied the problem," Eddins said "We put one underpass in, in 2000, with three miles of fence on one side and six miles on the other, and we got good confirmation that the deer would use that type of underpass."

Eddins and Rudd are hopeful the new fence and underpass system will be a permanent fix to a problem in Nugget Canyon that dates back more than two decades.

Rudd was unavailable for comment for this story, but he said in May the completion of the project has been a longtime goal for him.

"I have always said that I wanted to see this project completed in my career " Rudd said. "This is truly a great success story for Wyoming, protecting both motorists and deer."

BREAKOUT

Danger on the roads

Two people died and 156 were injured in 2007 in Wyoming while traveling in vehicles that collided with animals.

According to the Wyoming Department of Transportation's 2007 annual report, 15.5 percent of all reported crashes causing property damage were collisions with wildlife, mostly deer.

The wildlife toll, by the numbers:

1,838 - Number of deer reported killed by drivers in 2007, which caused vehicle damage.

$7,352,000 - Estimated total value of those deer reported killed by cars and trucks.

158 - Number of antelope reported killed by vehicles in 2007, animals worth an estimated $474,000.

125 - Number of elk reported killed by drivers, worth an estimated $750,000.

30 - Number of moose reported killed by drivers, worth an estimated $225,000.

2,170 - Total number of deer, elk, pronghorn and moose reported killed by vehicles in 2007, worth a minimum estimated total of $8.8 million.

All dollar figures are based on the state's legal restitution values for the animals.

Source: Erin Smith, spokeswoman for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's Lander region