I Said, Hey... What's Going On?

[jaedmc]

I approve of the turn this thread has made.

[J.T.]

3 hours ago, Execproducer said:

I wonder if there is roadkill that is specific to each state. For example, we lived in Florida for a few years when I was a child and you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a crushed armadillo.

Possums, raccoons, and squirrels here in the 804 with the odd pet cat or dog.  With summer coming, there will probably be a few dead turtles as well.

You also see the occasional dead dear on the side of the road but only idiots try to hit them on purpose.  A ten point buck will fuck your car up if you hit him.

Edited June 3, 2020 by J.T.

[Niners Fan in CT]

I hit a deer on my way to work.  However,  by the time I got back home I turned on the news and you know what...  it's a good day.  Car can be fixed.  Loss of human life cannot.  Today is still a good day. 

Edited June 3, 2020 by Niners Fan in CT

[Coletti]

In New Hampshire it's mostly squirrels, plenty of raccoon and possum, and of course deer... Sometimes you get a few beavers here and there, lots of wild turkeys and groundhogs as well. Up north, moose are apparently a very big hazard, you think a buck will fuck your vehicle up, hitting a moose will kill your ass.

[Coletti]

16 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

I hit a deer on my way to work.  However,  by the time I got back home I turned on the news and you know what...  it's a good day.  Car can be fixed.  Loss of human life cannot.  Today is still a good day. 

Actually to wrap it up in a bow and to bring Connecticut into things, I got stuck on 84 East for an hour today when the protest in downtown Danbury spilled over onto the interstate. at first I was pissed because I thought it was an accident but then it got really somber when I realized what was going on. It seems like things cleared up pretty peacefully, and then we were on our way.

[supremebve]

26 minutes ago, christopher.annino said:

In New Hampshire it's mostly squirrels, plenty of raccoon and possum, and of course deer... Sometimes you get a few beavers here and there, lots of wild turkeys and groundhogs as well. Up north, moose are apparently a very big hazard, you think a buck will fuck your vehicle up, hitting a moose will kill your ass.

I had a friend who was stationed in North Dakota for a few years, and he said that pretty much everyone on base had hit a moose at some point.  The reason that we have so many deer is that we've pretty much eliminated all predators, but more people die from deer related deaths every year than have died from predator deaths in the whole history of the country.  For the most part predators avoid people and roads, but people are much more scared of the predators they'll never see than the animals that they see all the time that is much more likely to kill them.

[Robert C]

I saw the end result of a car vs horse accident on a pitch dark night in east Texas. Not pretty. 

[JLSigman]

Along certain backroad stretches of South Carolina and Georgia you could find dead turkeys during the mating season (male turkeys are really, really dumb). 

[Ryan]

7 hours ago, Robert C said:

So what's the weirdest thing you've seen as roadkill or running across the road?  My personal weirdest is a monkey.  Outside of Dilley, Texas at about 6 in the morning.

Mostly opossums. I try and miss because they're very useful.

[Ryan]

7 hours ago, Zimbra said:

The followup to the story is that the kangaroo made the news when animal control got it and one of the other drivers was like "oh yeah, that belongs to my neighbor, but he's not supposed to have it."

I'm fairly certain I remember this news story.

[Ryan]

2 hours ago, supremebve said:

I had a friend who was stationed in North Dakota for a few years, and he said that pretty much everyone on base had hit a moose at some point.  The reason that we have so many deer is that we've pretty much eliminated all predators, but more people die from deer related deaths every year than have died from predator deaths in the whole history of the country.  For the most part predators avoid people and roads, but people are much more scared of the predators they'll never see than the animals that they see all the time that is much more likely to kill them.

People also just want more shit to hunt and kill and hate the competition for trophies, so they want to kill the predators too and fuck up the natural food chain. We suck. My family hunts, I've heard it all. The wolves kill multiple thousands of deer! Yes, and humans kill about half a million or so intentionally and the herd is still fucking enormous. This is just Wisconsin.

Edited June 4, 2020 by Ryan

[Unnatural]

Just outside of Lockhart my brother in law hit a deer driving to work at 6 in the morning last year. It jumped out from some bushes along 183 and fucked up his engine and most of the drivers side. Seeing photos of the wreck we were all astonished that he made it out without a single scratch or bruise, I mean he's doing about 70 when it leapt out and blindsided him. His car is all torn to shit and he's going Golly gee whiz ,it was nothing.

For roadkill, the most common whether I'm commuting in the city or the country is squirrels and cats equally tied.

As for my day, I'm feeling a bit burned out but I'm appreciative about being able to go to work through all the recent events since my job is in construction. I'm thankful that we still got to go in and with 90% of our office staff telecommuting I was maybe 1 of 2 in our entire building. The stress is from the general contractors throwing urgent requests at us for work, and it's all long term imo jobs that will take up months to complete but they want the shop drawings and estimates and demo and it's gotta be NOW! NOW! NOW! My boss and manager both say to take it easy, that this is the business we're in where everything is on a deadline and you don't even know anything about the deadline until 3 days past whatever due date they have. And they only tell you about it 3 days past because they only came in a day prior, so its just mayhem all the way, all day.

I'm trying not to let it drag me down and burn me out, and again I appreciate I was able to stay working and for most of the lockdown things had slowed down enough that I was able to make do since we had a smaller workload which wasn't as stressful since everything was slowing down across the board. But with things picking back up, new projects coming up and new jobsites to visit and walk, I just want to take a week off and do nothing. Just couch potato and get some more reading done, play some castlevania and NBA live, just veg out. 

[Tabe]

11 hours ago, Robert C said:

So what's the weirdest thing you've seen as roadkill or running across the road?  My personal weirdest is a monkey.  Outside of Dilley, Texas at about 6 in the morning.

OK, it wasn't running across the road, but I woke up one morning and took my dog out in the front yard. Dog runs to the edge of the yard and is very interested in something. Moose poop. A long line of it across my neighbor's yard and mine. 

I live in the city of Spokane one block from two major roads. 

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

I had a very close collision on a freeway with an elderly man trying to cross a 120km freeway with a 15km top speed motorized scooter. 

 

[The Natural]

13 hours ago, Execproducer said:

I wonder if there is roadkill that is specific to each state. For example, we lived in Florida for a few years when I was a child and you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a crushed armadillo.

;).

Edited June 4, 2020 by The Natural

[Coletti]

5 hours ago, Tabe said:

OK, it wasn't running across the road, but I woke up one morning and took my dog out in the front yard. Dog runs to the edge of the yard and is very interested in something. Moose poop. A long line of it across my neighbor's yard and mine. 

I live in the city of Spokane one block from two major roads. 

Just drove through there, beautiful area... And to be fair, while it's a city, you've got crazy forest/lake/mountain all around ya. The drive through Montana to south of Seattle was goddamn gorgeous.

[NikoBaltimore]

14 hours ago, supremebve said:

I had a friend who was stationed in North Dakota for a few years, and he said that pretty much everyone on base had hit a moose at some point.  The reason that we have so many deer is that we've pretty much eliminated all predators, but more people die from deer related deaths every year than have died from predator deaths in the whole history of the country.  For the most part predators avoid people and roads, but people are much more scared of the predators they'll never see than the animals that they see all the time that is much more likely to kill them.

It wouldn't surprise me if we wiped out a lot of predators in Maryland as there's deer everywhere.  The fuckers cost me a car and did a number on another that I managed to get fixed.  I've since then have had quite a hatred for deer and have almost considered hunting just for deer season.  But considering I'm likely a horrible shot I'd rather leave that to others.

[Robert C]

13 hours ago, Ryan said:

People also just want more shit to hunt and kill and hate the competition for trophies, so they want to kill the predators too and fuck up the natural food chain. We suck. My family hunts, I've heard it all. The wolves kill multiple thousands of deer! Yes, and humans kill about half a million or so intentionally and the herd is still fucking enormous. This is just Wisconsin.

There's also the stupidity of people trophy hunting the predators themselves, which has always struck me as a singularly useless endeavor.  A guy I grew up with shot a bear in Alaska, and all I could think of to ask was "why?"

Oddly enough I learned my distaste for predator control from my father, a lifelong hunter (as am I) who grew up in the little town Hayabusa mentioned in the post after yours.  His main anger on the topic gets pointed at his fellow ranchers, and their attempts to wipe out supposed threats to their livestock.  You can see the results of all this in some areas around Austin, where you'll sometimes see 30 (tiny) deer in one residential yard.

 

[Ryan]

True deer hunting is sitting in a tree for a week from sunup to sundown freezing to death, seeing nothing and then quitting halfway through to go get drunk.

[Eivion]

Most roadkill I see are cats, dogs, & squirrels. Squirrels seem to be either suicidal or moronic daredevils as they will actually jump into the road even after seeing cars. Don't think i have seen anything weird per say. The rarer stuff I have seen is possum, birds, and armadillos.

The talk of deer reminds me of an Adam Ruins Everything segment where it was mentioned how deer are practically pests at this point in some areas due to their population size and ability to kill people in car accidents.

Edited June 4, 2020 by Eivion

[Zimbra]

1 hour ago, Ryan said:

True deer hunting is sitting in a tree for a week from sunup to sundown freezing to death, seeing nothing and then quitting halfway through to go get drunk.

My understanding is that you're supposed to get drunk both during and after, but then I'm not a native Sconnie.

 

[supremebve]

4 hours ago, NikoBaltimore said:

It wouldn't surprise me if we wiped out a lot of predators in Maryland as there's deer everywhere.  The fuckers cost me a car and did a number on another that I managed to get fixed.  I've since then have had quite a hatred for deer and have almost considered hunting just for deer season.  But considering I'm likely a horrible shot I'd rather leave that to others.

I live in Northern Virginia, and work near Dulles Airport, there are days I see 15-20 deer on my way home.  There are so many deer around my office that vultures just hang out because they know eventually they'll be hit.  

[Eivion]

Speaking of vultures I had no idea how huge those things were until i saw some picking at something in my sister's neighborhood a year or two ago. I'm not used to seeing them in suburbs. It was weird.

 

[Robert C]

2 hours ago, Ryan said:

True deer hunting is sitting in a tree for a week from sunup to sundown freezing to death, seeing nothing and then quitting halfway through to go get drunk.

I always spent it napping.  Deer hunting is catastrophically boring.  To me at least.

[NikoBaltimore]

1 hour ago, Eivion said:

The talk of deer reminds me of an Adam Ruins Everything segment where it was mentioned how deer are practically pests at this point in some areas due to their population size and ability to kill people in car accidents.

Yes!  That episode re-affirmed my hatred for them and made it feel a tad less irrational.  Damn near eveyrtime I leave my mom's house after Sunday dinner she'll say "Watch out for deer, there's a lot of them"  They tend to congregate in their yard sometimes and I'll see one once in awhile.  Stupid fuckers.  Though Ryan's description of deer hunting sounds like I might fit in after all.