Live free and die: Deer-car collisions plague NH village but result in free ‘dinner’

In rural NH, deer-car crashes bring free ‘dinner’

PITTSBURG, N.H. — Up here, folks have another word for roadkill. It’s “dinner.”

When a whitetail gets clipped by a passing vehicle on Route 3, conservation officer Chris Egan or Police Chief Richard Lapoint come out to survey the damage. If the animal can be salvaged, it’s offered to the driver who hit it.

If the driver doesn’t want it, Egan or Lapoint start making calls. They keep a list of people who will take the animal for venison.

“Anytime the deer’s not hurt too bad, if you bone it right out, it’s almost as good as it would be if you killed it in the hunting season,” said Gordon Covill, 83, who got the call — and the meat — after a doe was hit last week near his house. “When they give me one, I’ll bone it out and save it.”

In this rural northern New Hampshire town, there’s no shortage of fresh meat on the grill. Deer have been getting hit at a rapid rate recently and many have either died on the spot or been euthanized because of their injuries.

As of Feb. 18, more than 50 collisions between deer and vehicles have been reported in Pittsburg and neighboring Clarksville, mostly on a 10-mile stretch of Route 3.

Deer and large animals have been vexing to drivers since the advent of the automobile.

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, there are more than 1.5 million deer-vehicle crashes in America annually, causing $1.1 billion in property damage. In 2008, 210 people died in collisions with animals, most of them deer, according to the Institute, an independent safety research group funded by auto insurance companies.

In New Hampshire, about 1,300 deer die in these collisions, most in the more populated southern part of the state — and the vast majority in breeding season, which goes from October to December.

“In Pittsburg, it’s a different pattern,” said Kent Gustafson, deer project leader for the Fish and Game Department.

“Some are killed in breeding season, but 60 percent are killed from December to March, the winter months when they’re concentrated along that Route 3 corridor for feeding and deer yarding” — or congregating in groups.

No deaths or injuries to people have been reported, but the trend has prompted state officials to install three flashing signs warning drivers to look out for deer.

In part, the collisions are due to migrating deer that congregate in spruce and fir stands that flank the bumpy two-lane road through Pittsburg (population 867).

Conservation authorities say the problem is compounded by residents who feed the deer, which they say alters their patterns of movement and puts the animals — and drivers — at greater risk of accidents.

“Every year’s bad, when you start losing this many deer,” said Lapoint. “One of the worst things is you have a lot of does who are carrying fawns.”

But locals defend the practice, and some believe the high number being hit on Route 3 has more to do with state-imposed limits on deer season than on feeding by humans.

For two years, the state has shortened the archery and firearm season by a week in the 10-town northern part of the state in a bid to give the deer time to grow into the kind of “trophy” animal prized by hunters. Hunters in Pittsburg and environs also have restrictions on taking antlered bucks before the animals have “points” that hunters elsewhere in the state don’t have.

Some believe that if hunters were allowed to kill more deer, there’d be fewer dying by car.

Gary Bedell, 73, a veteran hunter who owns Spruce Cone Cabins and Campground on Route 3, regularly spreads corn on his grounds to feed the animals. It’s common practice in Pittsburg, he says, by himself and others.

“Over the years, I’ve killed a lot of animals. This is my way of paying back. I feel guilty about doing it sometimes,” he said, meaning hunting.

The deer-vehicle collisions are no more prevalent this year than in others, he said.

Heather Marrotte, 43, hit one recently as she drove her Ford Expedition along Route 3 on a foggy night. Marrotte said she was going about 30 mph and saw a group of eight deer crossing the road ahead of her, but that there was a break in the line.

“I was thinking maybe I’ll just get by. By the time I could see them, there really wasn’t much I could do. It just kind of hit my tire. We were afraid it might be underneath, we pulled over. We think it turned around and went back the way it came,” she said.

When a deer’s injuries aren’t fatal but too serious for it to move, police or conservation officers shoot it on the spot.

If they get there in time, that is. Sometimes, a dead or injured deer will get scooped up by someone after it’s called in and before law enforcement can get to the scene, said Egan, the conservation officer.

When the carcass can be salvaged as meat, he or Lapoint get on the phone.

“We have gotten deer to families who need it,” Egan said. “There are a lot of people who aren’t working or on limited incomes from not as much work, so a higher percentage of people are taking them.”