United States Department of Transportation
i
Effective Jump-Outs for White-Tailed Deer and Mule Deer
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2023-09-01
[PDF-6.25 MB]
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Alternative Title:Effective Jump-Outs for White-Tailed Deer and Mule Deer – Interim Report [Project Title from Cover]
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Edition:Interim Report, October 2018 - September 2023
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Abstract:The height of jump-outs along a fenced road corridor should be low enough for the target species to readily jump down from the fenced road corridor to the safe side, or the habitat side, of the fence. At the same time, the jump-outs should be high enough to discourage animals from jumping from the habitat side of the fence up into the fenced road corridor. Previous research along US Hwy 93 North in Montana showed that only about 32% of the mule deer and about 7% of the white-tailed deer that appeared on top of 10 monitored jump-outs, jumped down to safety. For this project, these same 10 jump-outs along US Hwy 93 North were lowered in height to 152 cm (5 ft) and provided with a bar on top. The height of the bars (made from rebar) and their setback from the vertical face of the jump-outs were adjustable and the researchers applied 4 different treatments: 2 different heights (46 and 38 cm (18 and 15 inches)) and 3 different setbacks (10, 30, and 38 cm (4, 12, and 15 inches)). The overall effectiveness of the lowered jump-outs in allowing white-tailed deer to jump down, regardless of the height and setback of the bar, was only about 5% (no improvement). For mule deer the effectiveness of the lowered jump-out height in allowing them to jump down, regardless of the height and setback of the bar, was about 64% (this was about double the effectiveness of non-modified jump-outs). One of the treatments even resulted in about 80% effectiveness for mule deer. With the lowered jump-outs some mule deer jumped up into the fenced road corridor. However, there was still a net benefit as far more mule deer escaped the fenced road corridor.
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