Toronto, Ontario — Rural shops: if your business has seen fewer run-ins with deer-related damages, there could be a good reason for that. According to North American researchers and market analysts, when wolves colonize new areas throughout Canada, the overall deer-related auto collisions decrease as much as 24 percent.
Dominic Parker, a natural resources economist at the University of Wisconsin and the co-author of a recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says that along with wolves naturally thinning the herd, once the predator has entered a new area, deers learn pretty quickly their travel routes. Luckily for drivers, wolves like to travel by roads keeping deer away from oncoming traffic.
“When you have a major predator around, it impacts how the prey behave,” said Parker. “Wolves use linear features of a landscape as travel corridors, like roads, pipelines and stream beds. Deer learn this and can adapt by staying away.” (SOURCE told to Insurance Journal).
Since seeing this major drop-off in collisions when the presence of a large predator is around, scientists are now seeing the value in bringing the endangered species into other areas to help thin the herd and prevent more deer-vehicle collisions. Dave Mech, a senior research scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey in Minnesota says that this new research could change the way the public looks at wolves when it comes to having them in their region.
“Most economic studies of wolves have been negative, focusing on livestock losses,” said Mech. “But wolves also reshape ecosystems in many ways, although that’s hard to measure economically.” (SOURCE told to Insurance Journal)
According to the 2014 Ontario Road and Safety Report wildlife-vehicle collisions cost roughly $800 million in Canada alone, and there is a wildlife-vehicle collision every 38 minutes. Considering how often wildlife are having run-ins with motor vehicles, Adrian Treves, a University of Wisconsin conservation biologist, says that having the knowledge that wolves do make the roads significantly safer only “adds to growing awareness that scientists should consider both the costs and the benefits of having large carnivores on the landscape.”
