Looking for Love, Deer Find Cars Instead

Love is a dangerous thing -- and not just for humans.

Deer-mating season is that time of year when the animals, preoccupied with amorous pursuits, are more likely to collide with vehicles on roads and streets.

"Deer are more active, they're moving," said Doug Tregoning, director of the Montgomery County Cooperative Extension in Derwood, which offers agriculture-related educational programs. "If you're driving, you need to be particularly cautious around dusk and dawn. You need to use your high beams whenever possible because they will illuminate the sides of the road."

The mating season is from mid-October to January, with peak activity in the first three weeks of November. For the past few years, about 2,000 auto-deer collisions a year have been reported in the county, said parks officials.

Deer activity is often noticeable in Cabin John, Germantown, Goshen and Potomac and along the Interstate 270 corridor, but collisions are not limited to those areas, officials said.

"I wouldn't say there is any place in the county that wouldn't be at risk of [an auto-deer] collision," said Bill Hamilton, who helps control deer populations through managed hunts and other activities for the county Department of Park and Planning. Hamilton said 2,000 collisions per year is a conservative estimate because many people don't report the incidents.

"Right now is the breeding cycle all over the state of Maryland," Hamilton said during an interview last week as he participated in a managed hunt for deer at Woodstock Equestrian Park in Beallsville.

Deer population growth is not just a problem for vehicles. Deer often ravage farms and gardens and damage residences and other property, officials say.

As evidence of the frenetic nature of deer this time of year, a buck shattered the cafeteria windows Friday afternoon at the Montgomery County Council office building in Rockville. Scared and slightly bleeding, it walked between two tables of startled lunchtime patrons, witnesses say, and through a doorway into another room where it plunged through another set of windows along Route 28.

Paula Rehr, a producer for County Cable Montgomery, was eating when the incident unfolded. It was only afterward that she realized the behavior might have had something to do with mating season.

"The windows are not exactly mirrors, but they are reflective," Rehr said. "We don't know if he thought it was another deer." But, she said, the animal very well could have been on the chase. "It was definitely a great big male deer with great big antlers."