RALEIGH, N.C. — It’s deer mating season, and that means you may notice more deer while you are out driving. 

“This is the time of year where male deer bucks in particular are really scouting around the whole area where they live, looking for those to mate with. So, they’re just traveling around and they’re very single-minded about it. They’re not paying attention to very much else other than mating opportunities,” said Falyn Owens, the extension wildlife biologist with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.

Owens says deer typically move from a place where trees or woods can provide shelter directly to another area of shelter. If a road is between the two areas, it may not register with a deer.

“So if you think about it, cars, especially fast moving vehicles, have only been around for the last hundred years or so,” Owens said. “Evolution usually happens at the rate of millions of years. So basically, deer haven’t had time to understand what a fast-moving vehicle is. They barely even understand what a road is,” Owens said.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation reports from 2020 to 2022, 10 counties in our state saw more than 16,000 combined animal crashes. 

Owens says it’s the driver’s responsibility to react to the deer, not the other way around.

“If you do see a deer in the road, brake and just try not to hit the deer, but don’t swerve because swerving off the road to avoid the deer is a better way to get into an even worse accident,” Owens said.