I’m driving myself back home in my wife’s Black Fiat Panda, on the A90 approaching the long bend, when suddenly out of nowhere a deer leaps over the central reservation and tries to outrun my fast moving vehicle. We violently collide at a right angle. It disappears under the front of the car then lurches out onto the pavement struggling for life. I pull off the busy road in a frenzy to look at the damage. The front grill has deer hair jammed in the broken plastic, and the radiator is spilling its hot liquid onto the road. Luckily that’s all, nothing more. You hear of deer being flung over the car bonnet and smashing through the windscreen. But where is the deer? I look along the road and there it is, lying about 50 metres away, safely off of the road but lying still. I call my wife, I call the Police – “it’s not an accident” I’m advised, “next time call 101 but we’ll contact the Council about the carcass”. I hope there isn’t a next time. I walk along to see if the deer is definitely dead. It’s quite a large animal probably a roe deer I think, quite solid but its head is twisted round, it has small antlers and its intestines have come out. Not good, but what could I have done? Out of all the cars on the road at this time it chooses to run in front of the Black Panda. Where was he going? (I decide it’s a male).
I take some photos of the dead deer as evidence for the insurance claim then walk back to the car. “The rescue vehicle will be another hour” I’m told by the AA man, so I just sit and quietly wait in the car at the side of the A90. What were the chances of this happening? Why now? I’ve run over other wildlife in my time – a young pheasant running like a micro dinosaur across in front of the Fusion. The impact blasting its body across the road and removed a piece of plastic bumper and I’m never quite sure if the small rodents that dart across in front of the car at night in the brightness of the car lights ever make it in one piece. These animals are constantly risking their lives. I wish that they could learn to live safely away from the roads and live a less risky and traumatic existence. I seem to remember seeing some gorillas on TV who have mastered the act of safely crossing a busy jungle road.
Maybe this tragic incident is a sign of how man directly affects nature or it is nature showing us it is there, telling us to slow down, to be more aware of what is living around us and give them some space.
Iain Irving 