Every driver has on occasion seen a dead animal lying in the road. Some of you may even find it sporting to try to hit the fast-moving and indecisive squirrel (I am not among those of you that do). This last week I noticed an unusually large number of dead animals of various species lying on the road. And on my way home from Delaware the other day I counted six—yes six—dead deer. 

I’m the type of person that looks for patterns. It helps me figure out how to better market products and services when I can see patterns in buying behavior. I’m also a fan of Lost and Fringe if that gives you any idea of how my mind works. So the abundance of road kill made me think it would be a good idea to research this “multitude of dead deer on the road” phenomenon and see if the pattern of fur-lined concrete was a sign of something or just bad luck on the part of our four-legged friends.

At first I thought maybe it had to do with budget cuts in the state governments and therefore not enough workers to pick up the carcasses. If that’s true then we need some of those Michiganians to come down and pick up dinner for the family. (They do that up there, ya know.) But then I found an article on WTOP’s web site that stated, “As deer become more active during the breeding season that runs from October to mid-December, they begin to cross roads more often.” Kind of a weird coincidence that it’s breeding season and cars are killing off the population. Maybe it’s the deer version of the Darwin Awards. The deer that cross route 50 without looking are the dumb ones that are weeded out of the gene pool.

So I don’t know what to tell you except try to avoid big carcasses in the road, look out for the glowing eyes when it’s dark, know that they travel in packs, and if you’re in Delaware, “animals killed on state maintained roads should be reported to the Dead Animal Crew for their removal.” Hmmmm. Possible new career choice—dead animal crew. There seems to be lots of work to be done in that area.

And just for fun, if you’ve never seen the movie Tommy Boy, here is a clip that makes me laugh every time I see it. Unfortunatley the editor cut out the best part when Chris Farley says, “I swear I’ve seen a lot of stuff in my life, but that…was…awesome.”

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