Deer, deer: Deer whistles seem to be popping up all over the place, and rightly so. So are deer. Whereas a deer sighting used to be a real event, now it`s become startlingly common. That`s nice, of course, except that because they are seen with such regularity along roads, there is bound to be trouble, and there is.
”I`ve seen cars hit by deer,” said deer whistle proponent Jay Heyman of Highland Park. ”They wreck the car, besides killing the deer. Any deer you don`t hit is a good deer,” said Heyman, who won`t risk driving without a set of whistles on his car or his wife`s.
Maybe he has a point. Lake County Forest Preserve wildlife biologist Frank Drummond is not sure how much the county`s deer population has grown in the last 10 years. But he does know that the number of deer killed on state-maintained roads in Lake County has ”risen dramatically.”
Illinois Department of Transportation figures show that deer kills on state roads in Lake County increased to 338 in 1990 from 53 in 1980. But the numbers are small compared to the more than 9,000 deer kills on state-maintained roads in Illinois, Drummond said.
The answer to not becoming one of the statistics is the deer whistle, according to residents such as Heyman and, of course, the folks who sell them. ”They do work,” said Dave Bucholz of Sheridan Auto Parts in Highwood. Because the device is wind based, Bucholz said, the car should be moving at least 30 m.p.h. Sold under different brand names at prices ranging from about $5 to $10, the whistles come two to a package. Both should be installed exactly as instructed on the car`s front bumper to work properly, said T.J. Smith of K mart Automotive Services in Highland Park. But don`t expect to hear the whistle. ”It`s a high-pitched sonic scream. We don`t hear it but the deer, raccoons and dogs do. It`s annoying to them,” Smith said.