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Deer Whistles

Dancing David

Penultimate Amazing
Dancing David
Joined
Mar 26, 2003
Messages
39,700
Location
central Illinois
I unfortunately killed a deer last weekend (and no I do not oppose hunting) with my car. It surely was unfortunate for the deer , and it will cost my insurance company some to fix the fender.

So I ask, do deer whistles work? They are these little platic doodhikeys that you attach to you vehicle and they supposed make a sound that alerts the deer you are approaching, and they avoid your vehicle. I know they are popular but do they work?
 
I didn't know deer could whistle. But seriously, even if they did work (I seriously doubt they do) the deer would get used to them after a while just like they got used to roads and fast moving vehicles cutting through their habitat.
 
I struck a deer with my car in 2002. It was at night and a deer jumped out of the woods into the path of my car. I attached a deer whistle to my front bumper shortly after that. As a matter of fact, the insurance company sent it to me. I haven't had any problems since then. I remember one occasion when a small deer appeared to be hesitating, perhaps listening to the whistle, but it didn't cross the road in front of me. He just stood still.

At the time I struck the deer, I hadn't even made my first payment on the car. The car was a year old when I bought it. What really gets me is that the police officer that was passing by asked me if I went looking for the deer. It was pitch black, no stars in the sky, and he had the nerve to ask me if I went stumbling around in the dark without a flashlight in an area I was not familiar with the terrain with ledges and brooks all around.
 
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I recall a comedian's comment on deer whistles.

"They're so that the deer can hear you coming... You mean they can't hear VRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOMMMMM!"
 
My brother's dog got killed by a damn noisy freight train. Would a whistle have helped?
 
My buddy drives a semi truck for a large company here, and they are always taking out deer. They tried the deer whistles on some of the trucks and they made no difference.
 
I always heard deer whistles were a waste of time and never tried them. If deer live near an area with a road, I would think they would become habituated to all sorts of noises. However, if you have nerves of steel, you can try this. One problem when you are driving at night is that the deer just see a bright light in their eyes - they can't see the car. (Have someone shine a flashlight in your eyes at night and see if you can tell if they move directly towards you.) So if you come around a corner and there are 10 deer standing on the road in front of you, turn off your headlights for a second. It allows them to see you and get out of the way. I heard this and thought it was interesting so I tried it, and it does seem to work. At least, I have not hit any deer under those circumstances........ I turn off the lights and hold my breath, turn them back on and the deer are gone.
 
To give you an idea of hit and miss with psychic ability... A while back, I hit a deer one night and it died. About a month later, down the same stretch of road, I got a flash in my mind of a deer jumping out. I hit the brakes just as a whole family of deer rushed out with a bunch of baby deer. If I hadn't stopped when I did, I would have hit at least one of them. There was no way I could have seen them before they jumped out as there was alot of brush and trees on that side of the road and in the dark its impossible to tell.
 
MoonDragn said:
To give you an idea of hit and miss with psychic ability... A while back, I hit a deer one night and it died. About a month later, down the same stretch of road, I got a flash in my mind of a deer jumping out. I hit the brakes just as a whole family of deer rushed out with a bunch of baby deer. If I hadn't stopped when I did, I would have hit at least one of them. There was no way I could have seen them before they jumped out as there was alot of brush and trees on that side of the road and in the dark its impossible to tell.
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The thing is, you hit a deer there once so you subconscious calculated the odds of hitting a deer there again and the only way it could communicate it to you is by pumping up some adrenaline to give you a weird feeling so you stopped. Perhaps something triggered it like seeing the same mist of fog or something that was the same as when you hit the deer, thus, the times that were not identical did not trigger this effect. I think subconscious signals are the basis for many people believing they are psychic.
 
What about those little electronic thingies that you plug into a socket and supposedly they give out vibrations (not sure what kind) that keep roaches away? Has anybody tried those?
 
Yeah, cuz hitting a cockroach can put a dent in your fender that will just eat up your insurance premiums...
 
Starthinker said:
The thing is, you hit a deer there once so you subconscious calculated the odds of hitting a deer there again and the only way it could communicate it to you is by pumping up some adrenaline to give you a weird feeling so you stopped. Perhaps something triggered it like seeing the same mist of fog or something that was the same as when you hit the deer, thus, the times that were not identical did not trigger this effect. I think subconscious signals are the basis for many people believing they are psychic.
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BINGO! Finally somebody gets what I am trying to say!

Psychic abilities could very well BE that. Who said it was supernatural in nature? Subconcious signals ARE what psychic abilities claim to be. Whether this is caused by a subtle change in temperature, a indicator of mist or fog or whatever it is an instinct that we learn to recognize subconciously to warn us. THAT is what we need to explore.

This could very well also explain why it doesn't work in laboratory enviornments. That is because the same subtle signals are not there. It is time to stop being so strict about labels. Just because something is labeled psychic/paranormal doesn't mean it is somehow mystical or magical. There could be very scientific principles hiding in there somewhere.
 
From usroads.com

While manufacturers contend deer can hear the whistle up to a quarter mile away, no published research verifies the device's effectiveness. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety presented evidence refuting claims promoting the whistles:

Georgia's Game and Fish Department, for example, found that in hundreds of observations from vehicles equipped with deer whistles, deer didn't respond. Whistles on vehicles going 25-30 mph produced no ultrasonic sound, although some ultrasonic and lower frequencies were produced when the whistles were blown by mouth. According to wildlife biologists at the University of Georgia, neither deer nor humans can hear ultrasonic sound. Whistles blown by mouth near captive deer produce no response.
A University of Wisconsin study found that three types of whistle did produce low-pitched and ultrasonic sounds at speeds of 30 to 70 miles per hour; however, researchers were unable to verify that deer responded to the sounds, even at distances well below the distances from which manufacturers claim the whistles are heard. Moreover, deer would only be able to hear the whistles if there were a straight shot between the deer and the whistle. If curves, trees, or other obstacles came between the deer and the whistle, the device would be ineffective.

According to an article called "Blowing the Whistle on Deer Scare Devices" in the Mid-February 1993 Farm Journal, the Ohio State Police installed deer whistles on their patrol vehicles; however, they reported finding no significant decrease in collisions between patrol cars and deer. The same article indicated that a panel of the World Society for the Protection of Animals could find no data proving "that such a device can actually stop an animal crossing the road, which is the main purpose of the device." Finally, Washington State University researcher Leonard Askham felt the evidence tended to favor a conclusion that deer whistles do not work. "Even if the devices were effective," Askham warned, "they would soon become clogged with insects and dirt and stop working."
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