Elk

[joebartels]

When driving on 260, in that area be on the lookout for elk, they are everywhere, and hitting one is a serious accident. I read that on 260, in Sitgreaves last year, there were six Elk accidents, per mile of road.

I'd like to read that please

you've been hitting the sauce man

: rein : : rein : these aren't elks

PRESCOTT - A local Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation committee member struck and critically injured a bull elk with his pickup after leaving a fund-raiser for the animal.

The accident occurred May 17 on Arizona 89 at about 10:30 p.m.

"He was standing in the middle of the road when I came around the corner," said Scott Glattfelder, who estimated the 3-year-old elk's weight at more than 700 pounds.

"Bull elk" means an antlered elk.

[Daryl]

82 per day per state sounds about right. I hit 2 on my way to work this morning. Anyone else?

[overrocked]

I've seen elk on 260 several times. Once there was a huge buck at the gas station in Heber. Other times there were 3 or 4 does on the side of the road just past the series of 4 or 5 signs warning of elk on 260. Since I'm usually hauling a loaded or empty trailer, I am always going pretty slow on that stretch of road. But I am guilty of traveling high speeds on I-17- Are there many sightings, collisions north to Flagstaff?

[AZBrad123]

Hey all, believe it or not, in college a friend of mine hit an Elk, totaling his car, coming from Flag to Phx late at night. I drove him to his parents to pick up thier car to get back to class, and he totalled that car on an elk going back to Flagstaff. Both times he was driving pretty late at night, and i am sure over the speed limit. You really have to watch it up the 17 though. Luckily he made it out ok, but needless to say there are two less elk in the world now!

[joebartels]

82 per day per state sounds about right. I hit 2 on my way to work this morning. Anyone else?

near miss again
man, now I know why they call it Deer Valley


just to put this into perspective

1.5 Million deer accidents in the US each year
Cardinals have 8 home games
IF(dream sequence) they brought in 40,000 fans per game it'd still only be a drop in the bucket at one FIFTH of the deer accidents in the US yearly

[Snick33]

Certainly your apologies are excepted Joe, but perhaps a small token of humility might make give it some more impact. After all, you did humiliate me in front of thousands of readers, including my children, and at least one X-wife. I was thinking in terms of a yearly award named after me, yea, that would shut me up alright . . . . something like the "Snick Memorial Hiker of the Year", something alone those lines would do it.

[joebartels]

done deal!

if you want I'll toss in
The Annual HAZ Rick-n-Roll New Years Eve Party
(at Snick's place of course)

[escudilla]

I live on the mountain and find that the section between Hondah and Sunrise to be the worst section of 260 for elk (mainly summer). During the winter when they move down the mountain they can be found on 60 between Show Low and Springerville (not fun on snow and ice). Highway 191 between Nutrioso and Alpine is bad anytime of year. As a paramedic in this area I have only seen maybe 5 to 10 accidents a year. The worst accidents involve people who try to swerve to miss, they either hit another vehicle or something bigger off-road like a tree. My best advice is to drive alert and slow, if you can't stop, hit it, beware the unknown. Dimming lights help and I've been told by DPS that its the change in engine noise when you slow down that will make them jump into your path (well maybe?).

[joebartels]

the swerve tidbit is good to know

I've been told by DPS that its the change in engine noise when you slow down that will make them jump into your path (well maybe?).

interesting, though how do I interpret that?
hold my moderate speed & check the slack in my seatbelt?

[escudilla]

In response to joe bartels' reply: I've never tried it either, the pucker factor is to great.

[montezumawell]

Hey, ya'll, remember when Game and Fish legalized the "take" of road kill?
My buddies and I had a great time with that one. We wanted to be the first to get the "Road Kill Cook Book" in print. Fortunately, someone beat us to it. One of our ideas was another book on how to actually rig your vehicle to collide with an elk.

Naturally, you would have to have a hefty vehicle with a stout frame and front end.

To your stout vehicle, you would have a custom-welded front rig affixed.
It would look a lot like the front tines of a fork lift only slanted a lot more on the diagonal. The typical "brushbar" would be modified with the addition of large stainless steel "teeth." When you hit the elk, it would be impaled on those "teeth" and held there atop the tines without rising up and through the windshield as so many of them are wont to do.

Thus the elk would get bled at "arm's length" from the vehicle, so to speak. It would be in the perfect position for skinning and dressing at the nearest rest stop.

Meanwhile, according to our book that never got published (thank God & Amazon), you would have a custom 12 volt cooler in the rear of the vehicle. You would also be carrying a boxed set of kick a** skinning knives and other "dressing" equipment. Latex gloves, freeezer wrap and all the rest.

Hey, instead of fearing an impact--bring it on. Legally, you could take home plenty danged good meat. Why, a lot of guys pay the "big bucks" to go out and walk miles over rough terrain lugging rifles, bows, arrows, and who knows what else, hoping they can "bag" an elk. They wait patiently for the G&F lottery to let them know they have been "selected!"

So, who cares about all of that? Just get the right rig, modify it a little bit and hit the road at the right time of twilight. Man, you're gonna be sittin' purty! More elk meat than you know what to do with!

j

[te_wa]

Does anyone know if the so called "deer alarms" actually work? I put one on my truck for the trip to Blue Ridge and I must have hit 25 deer/elk on the way! I think I installed it backwards... OK bad joke. Real bad. So the thing is, I agree speeding is dangerous, and I recall reading that for every 10 mph you travel over the speed of 55, your chance of dying doubles! (considering an actual impact, that is) What I dont agree with is that one should drink a Frappacino if they plan on taking it easy. Wha?? There is no way I can fathom that notion. Sorry. It is also my belief that if God Forbid, you might hit an elk on the road, it would be a good idea for the driver to consider carrying a handgun to end a possible slow and painful death to the animal. I dont personally own a handgun, so please lets not go there! I once lived in Flagstaff, where winter brought herds of elk sometimes in the 100's and they would just mosey across Route 66 and nobody seemed to be bothered. It was a terrific sight because here in the Valley people seem to be in a hurry to go nowhere. But then again, Flagstaff is not infested with "Califoreigners" ha! snap!!

[Dschur]

When my sister was working for the Coconino Sheriff's department they had an officer that went with his wife to pick up his new deputy car. On the way back from there a elk hit the car in the door and totaled it. When I used to go up to Flag from Payson (Lake Mary Rd or FH8) There sometimes was up to 100 of the elk in different bunches along the road. I wouldn't go more than 40 mph or so cause there was so many. One thing too is not to just look at the road but us the side vision and check along the road. They are trimming alot of the trees back on the rim and along the highways and that helps to see them before they get to the road. The most we have been seeing them resently is in the morning coming off the golf course in Payson. They love the grass there....

[AZBrad123]

Two comments,

First, about my friend who hit the two elk. The ironic thing was that one cops showed up on both calls, and was pissed. Not that much at my friend but that twice in one weekend he was going to have to dispose of a mangled Elk carcass. For some reason they had to do it, not sure of the whole story. But, the cop both times tried to explain to my buddy that it was his option to take the meat. And that the meat was good eating. Needless to say my friend saw through the ruse. He said he just starting laughing hysterically when the cop told him this, since the first one was almost split in half. Don't think that that meat would be tasting too good!

Second, i have always been told to not swerve, and usually the deer will jump at the last minute. The theory that i was told was that the animal will bolt, and you have a better chance of swerving into it when it bolts. Never had the opprotunity to check that theory, but it is probably better than swerving.

[Abe]

I have been lucky. Knock on wood! I have smacked skunks, we have a lot of 'em in Prescott Valley, smacked cottontails and jackrabbits, and once; clipped a small deer on 89A one early morning. Took me by surprise when it jumped out and bounded across the road, I did not even have time to consider my options when I nick it's behind. I like to think the little bugger made it, because when I stopped and looked around, I could not find it on the road or over the side.

The worse thing I have ever heard and seen, after the fact, was when my friend called early one morning just tore up. Earlier, around one in the morning, while he was driving home with his father asleep, between Dewey and Blue Hills, a horse bolted out. My buddy hit the horse square-on broadside and the thing he remember most was the horse death throes as it pawed the pavement. The truck, a Ford F-150, front end was smashed straight back like an accordian. It was a pretty sad day for my friend.

[cactuscat]

It was a pretty sad day for my friend.

Yeah, not a great day for the horse, either!

[mikedsmith]

In response to AZBrad123's reply:

Think whether to swerve depends what you are driving...

My only experience is on vacation in Utah, driving back to Moab from hiking Natural Bridges.

I was driving a passenger car, doing 50 [55 limit] at night. Appeared 'from nowhere' [presumably from bushes on passenger side of road], I swerved, it hit side of car, took passenger side door mirror and door damaged, would not open.

Reckon if I had hit it head on it would have been through the windshield...

Mike

[chumley]

@joe bartels
From the waaaaaayback machine! Did Bruce start this thread when he was a kid? ;)

I was reading this and also thought that 1.5 million deer collisions seems high. But there wasn't an internet when this thread started and now there is, so here's some more data.

There's actually a wiki on this and it claims 1 million animal-vehicle collisions and 200 deaths annually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer%E2%80 ... collisions

The "Insurance Journal" says it was an estimated 1.23 million in 2011.

USAToday has a piece that shows what the most dangerous states are (PA, WV, MI, IA, SD) and how late autumn and early winter are exponentially worse due to mating seasons.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nat ... 51019604/1

And it all seems a little high to me anyway. These numbers are established by insurance companies. But people aren't always honest. I know of three people personally who were involved in distracted driving accidents that reported animal involvement as the cause. (For the record, it doesn't matter to the insurance company. Unless another person/driver causes the accident, it's your fault whether you were changing the radio station, texting, or a deer ran into the road). Point is, I think the insurance numbers might be inflated.

I found a report from Washington State that covered a 5-year period (2000-2004) and used only data from deer and elk carcasses removed from state roadways.

14,969 deer, and 415 elk carcasses were removed from state roadways over those 5 years. Thats about 3,000/year or about 10% of the math Joe did above ... 8 deer per day. It is interesting to note that only one elk carcass was recovered every 5 days on average over those 5 years. The Washington State study emphasizes that it only covers carcasses recovered, and that animals struck who traveled beyond the roadway and died later are not counted, nor are those on city-owned roadways. It mentions a study that estimates an additional 5x more deer were probably killed by vehicles than those whose carcasses were recovered on or adjacent to the roadway. Even so, the math still adds up to about half of the estimates reported elsewhere.

It's worth noting that elk are substantially larger than deer, and may have higher survivability rates after a vehicle collision. Or at least the ability to get farther from the roadway before expiring, therefore not being counted as highly in the Washington State study.

Full reading here: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/research/report ... /701.1.pdf

Reports from Wisconsin showed over 25,000 deer removed from roadways by either state highway contractors, or via free hunting tag (mmm road kill!). That's 68/day, and you'd have to figure that more are hit that don't die. This might be the closest figure to the estimate I can find. But it's difficult to extrapolate data from a state like Wisconsin to other states with much smaller deer populations.

In Arizona, AZGFD reports that about 75% of vehicle animal collisions on I-40 from Williams to Winona, I-17 from Flagstaff to Stoneman Lake, and AZ-260 from Payson to Forest Lakes are due to elk. If you travel the 260 east of Payson, you may have seen the elk crossing areas that have been installed in the past decade or so.

An AZGFD study I found showed that prior to the elk crossings, an average of 12 elk were struck by vehicles in a 3-mile study area at Preacher Canyon. If you extrapolate the data to cover the 30 miles from Payson to the top of the rim, that would be 120 elk struck annually on just that segment of AZ-260. Which is about one every three days. With about 2.5 million cars passing through there annually, the odds were about 1:20,000 of you hitting an elk when you drove that stretch.

Now that the elk crossings have been installed, the rate of collisions has dropped by over 90% according to the AZGFD report (commissioned by ADOT).

In the end, data can be made to tell whatever story the entity seeking funding wants it to tell. Which usually isn't true.

So that's all I feel like reading on this topic tonight. Interesting stuff though!

[BobP]

One of my favs....... "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." 1st Earl of Beaconsfield

[FOTG]

@BobP

I think I get the reference

[FOTG]

@chumley

Thank you for the convincing thesis and small publication ;) Will there also be a defense of your dissertation?