Spartan Mowers Releases 2025 Product Lineup
Jessica Schwartz
New Vehicle Lighting Design For Less Deer & Car Collisions
Could the phrase “like a deer in headlights” become defunct? Researchers with the National Wildlife Research Center (NWRC), a USDA Wildlife Services (WS) program, recently found a way to help prevent deer-vehicle collisions during low-light conditions. Through a series of experiments with free-roaming white-tailed deer, they discovered a new vehicle lighting system, which uses a rear-facing light-emitting diode (LED) light bar to illuminate a larger portion of a vehicle’s front surface, is safer. In fact, the likelihood of dangerous interactions decreased from 35% to only 10% when using a rear-facing light bar plus headlights versus just headlights alone. The reduction in dangerous interactions appeared to be driven by fewer instances of immobility or “freezing” behavior by deer when the light bar was used. “This new lighting system takes advantage of a deer’s predator avoidance behavior (also known as flight behavior),” states lead author and former NWRC researcher Dr. Travis DeVault, who currently serves as the associate director of the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. “We predicted that light reflected from the front surface of the vehicle would provide a more reliable looming image to deer, thus encouraging the deer to move out of the path of the approaching vehicle.” When an object “looms,” it becomes increasingly larger to the perceiving animal, helping the animal realize that the object is an approaching object versus one that is stationary. In the U.S. and Canada, deer cause the majority of animal-related road collisions leading to injury or death and many ...
Deer Eating Everything? Control Tips
By Chris Markham Landscape professionals know there are few obstacles more difficult to deal with than deer control. According to the Quality Deer Management Association, just a single 150 pound white-tailed deer will eat anywhere between 9 to 12 pounds of vegetation per day. On a landscaped lawn, that can mean lots of aesthetic and financial damage, a greater risk for ticks, and unhappy clients. So how do you control deer? Now more than ever, deer have been observed eating plants considered for decades as “deer-resistant.” Green giant arborvitae, coneflowers, and astilbe are just a few of the commonly used landscape plants that deer have taken a liking to in recent years. While no one knows for sure why deer are expanding their palates, there are some obvious trends in deer populations that provide some clues. For one, overdevelopment has limited their wild habitat and forced them to find food on residential properties. Deer don’t seem to mind suburban habitats which often contain lush, irrigated plantings in a safe environment. In some areas, the densest deer populations are found right in the middle of communities. Another reason is that even in wild areas, high deer populations have decimated native understories — only to be replaced by inedible invasive species such as Japanese barberry and Japanese stiltgrass. No Hosta, Daylily Or Yew So what should landscape professionals plant if deer are around? First, avoid anything that deer consider a preferable food. This would include hostas, daylilies, and yews. It is important ...
