Few Car Crashes with Deer in Wisconsin, Perhaps Thanks to Wolves [View all]

[Klaralven]

Rebounding populations of gray wolves (Canis lupus) in Wisconsin are associated with reduced car accidents with deer, researchers have found. These predators frequent certain routes, or travel corridors, that include manmade roads, and the authors conclude that by keeping the deer away, the wolves did humans a favor. According to the study, published online May 24 in PNAS, counties where wolf populations returned after being wiped out in the middle of the 20th century saw declines in vehicle crashes with deer of 24 percent, on average, saving the state nearly $11 million annually.

“The icing on the cake is that wolves do this work all year long at their own expense,” Liana Zanette, an ecologist at Western University in Canada who was not involved in the study, tells The Atlantic. “It all seems like a win-win for those wolf counties.”

Because wolves prowl on roads, trails, and pipelines conveniently cleared by humans, they deter prey species from hanging about, the authors of the new study suggest. And, of course, wolves eat deer, directly reducing the numbers of deer on roadways, though this only seemed to account for about 6 percent of the decline in deer-vehicle collisions that the team documented. Overall, counties with wolves had 38 fewer deer-vehicle collisions per year by the end of the study period.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/few-car-crashes-with-deer-in-wisconsin-perhaps-thanks-to-wolves-68802

We need wolves in NJ.