Anyone else think that maybe the states should be promoting hunting, instead of constantly increasing the costs associated with it?
The number of vehicles on U.S. roadways has grown by 7 percent over the last five years.  But the number of times those vehicles have collided with deer has swelled by much more than that. Using its claims data, State Farm®, the nation’s leading auto insurer estimates 2.4 million collisions between deer and vehicles occurred in the U.S. during the two-year period between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2009 (100,000 per month). That’s 18.3 percent more than five years earlier. To put it another way, one of these unfortunate encounters occurs every 26 seconds (although they are much more likely during the last three months of the year and in the early evening).
Oddly enough, Nebraska had the same 54% increase in deer-vehicle collisions.
This is an ongoing problem. In one of the early-80s years I was stationed in Upper MI, there were 7,800 deer reported killed by vehicles and trains, and just over 7,500 taken by hunters.
There are FAR more deer in the continental US now than there were at the time of colonization, maybe 3 times as many. Deer and coyotes are two animals which seem to thrive alongside man.
We have some fairly silly deer resrictions in Nebraska. Though our biggest problem is the inability for regular hunters to find land to shoot on. Our farmers are notoriously stingy and unwelcoming, so most guys just hunt birds on State approved lakes and land.
Petey … I suspect those stingy and unwelcoming farmers might be closing off their land to hunters in Nebraska for the same reason our farmers, and in addition, the large timberland owners are closing their lands off here.
For decades hunters have been generally welcomed on these lands, but in recent years (10 years or so), the hunters started treating these privilages like rights and treated the lands like their own garbage dumps and damaging valuable “products” with no regard for the owners or fellow hunters. So again we have a few ruining a good thing for all. It’s too bad, but us humans have a tendency to mess things up for ourselves. Can’t say as I blame the landowners.