{"id":95,"date":"2015-02-26T19:11:52","date_gmt":"2015-02-26T19:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whydidthedeercrosstheroad.langbeinwildlife.co.uk\/?p=95"},"modified":"2015-11-05T21:26:38","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T21:26:38","slug":"how-do-deer-cross-britains-busiest-motorway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whydidthedeercrosstheroad.langbeinwildlife.co.uk\/?p=95","title":{"rendered":"How do deer cross Britain’s busiest motorway ?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Despite our ever-increasing human population, expanding road networks and urban sprawl, deer have adapted to living within major cities including the like of Sheffield, Edinburgh, and Southampton. Even more surprising is the number of deer that now inhabit London Boroughs inside the M25 orbital motorway- one of Europe\u2019s busiest roads. How they manage to<\/p>\n

\"J_l8wwve0_RoeBuckRTA_1000\"<\/a>avoid the dangers of often eight-lane wide carriageways is an intriguing question. The sad fact is that vast numbers of deer die attempting to cross Britain\u2019s roads leading approximately to 70,000 deer casualties, many hundreds of human injuries and several fatal traffic collisions every year. \u00a0On just the M25 alone these annual figures include 65 deer road kills, however from our emerging research we now know that many more do manage to cross safely by using low underpasses and bridges. First evidence of this I captured on video using CCTV ten years ago, of one fallow buck crossing a narrow concrete M25 bridge. Some years later I managed to film also larger groups of deer crossing a wider bridge, but just one using a small underpass (see Youtube playlist below).<\/p>\n