White-tailed deer stand majestic on the edge of southern Indiana forests and cornfields, mostly skittish of the activity of humans.
Numbering in the hundreds of thousands in this part of the state, they also enrage farmers and thwart the efforts of gardeners, decimating rural soybean fields and destroying well-tended gardens in urban neighborhoods.
In late fall, mating and hunting seasons combine as the 100- to 150-pound wild animals dart across roads and highways — they can run up to 35 mph and jump 8 feet — causing collisions that injure motorists. There were 14,021 deer-vehicle collisions during 2016 in Indiana, down about 1,200 from the year before, that caused an estimated $119 million in damage.
The crash data, illustrated with a photograph of a dead doe lying in a ditch alongside a two-lane highway, is among information presented in the Indiana Department of Natural Resources’ 2016 Indiana White-Tailed Deer Summary.
The 128-page publication is full of white-tailed deer data, ranging from how many were killed by hunters using a bow and arrow to the number of deer — both antlered and antlerless — harvested by county from year to year.
State deer biologist Joe Caudell said it’s important to track these animals that went extinct in Indiana during the 1890s but were reintroduced in the 1930s, when the state bought 296 deer from other deer-populated areas for release on Hoosier land.