if you hit a deer with your car do you report it?

[watchmaker]

I was just wondering if you kill a deer are they protected or anything and need to be reported to anyone?

[RATTER15]

No they are not protected and you do not need to report it to anyone.

I assume we are talking about accidentally killing a deer with your car?

[lankeela]

There is no legal requirement to report it, but at a Game Fair I attended last year in Suffolk there was a stand which was running a wildlife survey and they were asking for incidents involving deer to be reported (can't for the life of me remember who it was - maybe BASC or some other countryside organisation?). I will rack my brains and see if I can remember.

[maglet]

No you dont need to report it, and you could claim the fresh carcass for venison. Where I live there are herds of fallow deer and muntjack, and we see deer every week on the road usually dead.........so drivers please be careful when driving through the Cotswolds, there is nothing more saddening to see a beautiful antlered stag lying dead and a car mangled up.

[CT]

I imagine if you hit a deer you'll need to report it to your insurers. I suspect your car would need some form of repairs.

[horsestache1]

Quite right CT, your car would be a mess, so don't drive so fast is the easy answer.

[heathfield]

Maglet, here's what happens if the police see you with a dead deer in Scotland...

They'll ask if you got it as a result of an estate shoot. If you say you have, they'll check up on your story there and then.
If they can't confirm your story, you'll be taken to a police station and put straight into the cells.

The police will contact a vet, who will carry out an autopsy, and skin the carcase to look for any bullet wounds. If it's outside working hours, the police won't call the vet until next morning, and you'll remain in the cells overnight!
Only after receiving the vet's report that the animal has truly been killed by colliding with a vehicle, and not by a poacher's gun, will you be let free.

The damage to the deer may seem obvious, but poachers have been known to shoot deer, then drive over them, so the police take no chances.

Penalties for poaching deer are severe.

If you see a dead deer on the road in Scotland, by all means pull it to the side of the road out of the way of traffic, (A biker could be killed by hitting a dead deer). Otherwise, don't touch it. Report it to the police as soon as you can, and tell them what you've done.

I'm serious.

(And, a dead deer is the property of the owners of the estate it comes from).

I'm serious.

[kwicky]

How do the police or insurers know you are telling the truth. You could have been involved in a hit and run accident. Yes call the police after the incident who will be able to verify your claim and also issue you with an incident number to give to your insurers.

[amonty1144]

Under the terms of the Road Traffic Act you must report accidents to the police involving Dogs, Goats, Cows, Horse, Ass, Mule, Pig and Sheep. Also an accident involving injury to a person whether in vehicle or otherwise.

It is good practice to report the accident to the stalker or gamekeeper for the area in which the accident occurs, via the police if you don't know. Especially if the animal is hit but runs off.Technically under the new Animal Welfare legislation, you could be charged with causing unnnecessary suffering.

[spudqueen]

Yes you should report it. There's a man who lives in our village who the police call out to clear up dead deer from the roads. He has an official title (can't remember what it is) but he covers practically the whole of the north west of England. BTW it is illegal to take the carcass of any deer you have killed with your car. The car behind you could take it, but not you! This is to stop people deliberately running over deer.

[Noweia]

Having been involved in several cases from the pathologist's point of view, I can say that what heathfield says is 100% correct!

[RATTER15]

I dispute what heathfield is saying about a dead deer being the property of the estate it came from!!

Unless that whole estate is fenced in, any deer running wild is deemed to be a wild animal and is not owned by anyone!! it would be different if it was killed on the estate and not on a public road!!

[watchmaker]

thankyou for all of your help, just want to reasure people that it was an accident and not due to careless driving. it was after my mother accidently hit a deer it did sadden her too so thankyou for all of your responses.

[heathfield]

Ratter. Red deer are wild animals. Nevertheless, by tradition, and these days under the provisions of the EU on (strangely) Human Rights, they are regarded as 'property'.