Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
sin's state park system has been a finalist in the national Gold Medal Parks award for the
best in the country.
ROADKILL
Driving in Wisconsin, you
will
experience insanely high numbers of deer (and car-
casses roadside); we are seventh in the United States for number of collisions. The
good news is that Door County is on the lower end of population scale; however,
driving in from the south, you'll pass through counties on the extreme top end. The
modern rite of passage for “my first deer” no longer necessarily implies one downed
with a weapon.
DEER DISPLACEMENT
The fecund croplands and suburban gardens that replaced the state's original mead-
ows and forests have also lured huge numbers of deer back, to the point that some
suburban areas ringed with rural lands have higher deer concentrations than public
parklands. Some wildlife biologists now worry that the social carrying capacity of
the land, or the number of deer that humans can tolerate, has been maxed out in the
south, while in the sparsely populated north, the reverse is true—the biological car-
ryingcapacity isbulgingattheseams. Theprimarycauseisonceagainalethal mod-
ern combination of an abundance of crops available for the deer to eat and refusal to
allow hunting on private land, which results in no thinning of the herd. And it's not
the same old divisions in this debate—some environmentalists are prodeer hunting,
as enormous deer populations destroy fragile and rare flora in winter feeding.
THE NUMBERS
The Department of Natural Resources estimates the deer herd at anywhere between
1.1and1.6million(estimatesvarywildly,andagoodwaytostartafightinabaristo
bring this topic up). Annually, nearly 20,000 car-deer crashes are reported (causing a
half-dozento12deathsand400to700injuries);sincetheseareonlytheinvestigated
ones, you can probably safely double that number. Statewide, deer account for more
than 15 percent of crashes since 1978 (up from 5.1 percent then); then again, it's 33
percent lowerthanthemid-1990stothemid-2000s,whendeerpopulations exploded
and everyone seemed to hit a deer. A conservative estimate puts the damage total,
