Letter: Fencing could reduce animal-vehicle collisions on roads, he says

TO THE EDITOR:

Deer-car collisions are epidemic, chronic wasting disease dictates isolating deer areas from one another, insurance companies keep raising rates the DNR has been looking for solutions, the transportation department hopes to make our highways safer, the situation is a plague on tourists and residents are not too happy either.

The answer is as obvious as the eyeglass holder on your face. The state is divided by fenced freeways, albeit they are too short to hold out deer, inadequate to restrain wolves, raccoons, elk or bear from following the chicken across the road. Got the picture?

An upgrade of existing fences, cattle guard gates at cloverleafs and adding fence to some state roads would divide the state into 10 or 12 regions with deer free major roads. As the collisions abate, the insurance companies can rebate to the state a portion of the savings to be used to expand the fencing program. Too costly, you say. How much is too much, if it saves lives and reduces injuries?

During the 1980’s, my wife and I took a trip on the freeway though the Colorado Mountains, no animals larger than a woodchuck were pressed into the pavement. They had the fencing I have described. Every body wins.

John W. Swenson

River Falls

Tags: opinion, animal, highways