Dear Action Line,
Driving the fairly new stretch of U.S. Highway 550 south from the former Bridges to Nowhere recently, I noticed the tall, bomber-looking deer fencing on both sides of the highway. In particular, I spotted some short, weird-looking sticks placed into the fencing a couple of feet off the ground at seemingly regular intervals.
Nothing in my not very vast fence-building background brings to mind the possible purpose of the added sticks. Maybe they’re to place tension on the fence? But if so, why are they only placed here and there along the fence, and not everywhere? Any light you can shed is greatly appreciated.
And, with more and more stretches of deer fencing appearing alongside our highways, I’d love to know: Just how effective are deer fences, for both human and animal safety? And, do the many wildlife underpasses and few (expensive) overpasses really enable critters to get where they want to go?
Signed, Just Wondering
Deer Just Wondering,
I asked Colorado Department of Transportation about this and they told me the wooden stakes are so that if you are out at night and encounter a vampire, you’d have a weapon handy to defend yourself. OK, that’s not true – you’d have a really hard time getting them out in time, because they are stuck in there tight. And that’s because of what they are actually for, which is, as you guessed, to tension the cross wires to make the fence taut and strong, with an end tucked in to keep the tension. This technique goes back to early livestock fencing, and you see a version of that in screen doors to fortify an otherwise-flimsy wooden frame, with turnbuckles used for tensioning.
But those stakes also do double-duty as “visual anchors” to help large wildlife see the fences to keep from running into them. You don’t see them in every single section because certain sections need to stay more flexible, and hopefully large deer don’t bounce off those too much.
As for how effective the fences are, studies have shown that along with wildlife overpasses, underpasses and other features, they reduce wildlife collisions 75% to 90%. While that might cut into the practice of getting healthy meat from roadkill harvest (see Action Line, Dec.14, 2025), even locavore meat gatherers would admit that it’s better not to have vehicles killing deer – it’s really dangerous for people as well as the deer, not to mention how expensive a car repair is after such an encounter.
Speaking of the wildlife underpasses and overpasses, like the one on U.S. Highway 160 out toward Pagosa, they are an integral part of the system where fences extend for a long distance without a place for wildlife to cross. Deer and other wildlife actually get really good at figuring out the locations of these overpasses (and underpasses for smaller animals), and learn to use them. Other components help make these features useful, like “deer guards” at roads and driveways that interrupt the wildlife fencing to keep wildlife from crossing there. They have to be wider than cattle guards so that animals can’t jump across. “Jump-out ramps” are another feature, which are mounds of dirt on the highway side of the fences so that when wildlife do inadvertently get on the highway side they have an easy escape to get out. Maybe CDOT can take those dirt mounds out by Holly Avenue and 32nd Street and put them to good use for that.
Email questions and suggestions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. Today’s Fun Fact: The idea that driving a stake through a vampire will kill it goes back to the 12th century when Eastern European villagers would drive stakes through exhumed corpses suspected of being vampires so that they would stay staked to the ground. That idea morphed into the modern idea of driving a stake through a vampire’s heart to kill it for good, as in Dracula, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and beyond.
