Deer Whistles On Truck - Work Or Not?

[Fishes in trees]

Long story short, I was going fishing last Wednesday, left house pre- dawn and hit a deer.  Deer did a significant amount of damage to my Explorer, but I still had headlights and no fluids were dripping from the engine and it didn't overheat and to I continued on to the lake I'd chosen to fish that day.

 

Anyway,  my Explorer was equipped with the anti-deer whistles.  They were going on a couple of years old. Can these wear out?  Can deer get immune to the sound?  Obviously, they didn't work this time.  I am curious to hear about other guys experiences with the anti-deer  whistles. Do they work for you?  How can you tell?  Do you think that they wear out?  Who would you talk to to find out answers to these questions, other than the anecdotal evidence?

[BrianinMD]

They work as long as the deer is standing in the road waiting for you, if they are off to the side and moving across the road its useless. And if they are spooked by something it doesn't matter if they hear it or not.

[Wayne P.]

I call those Elephant whistles. I see lots of deer and no elephants.

[ww2farmer]

NO....you know what works.............. nothing, except paying attention and slowing down a little bit in known deer infested areas.....but sometimes you still get one.There is a couple mile stretch of road I have driven every day  to work for 20 years that has to be the deer hit capital of the world. I have hit 2 in those 20 years and consider myself lucky. Just last week, I drove down that rode in one of our tractors that sit up way higher than your average car/truck/suv, so I could see down in the ditches, over the bushes, and etc...that you can't see from a car, and counted a new record of 36 dead deer in about a 3 mile stretch of that road.....and that was just the ones that I could still tell were deer. The old record was 21. Plus there were a dozen more on the north and south sides of the "hot zone".

[Grizzn N Bassin]

yup i don't think they do a thing, but you could get them and hey maybe they will,just be smart driving through heavy areas with deer.

[Hi Salenity]

My dad has owned a Body Shop all of my life. I've seen tons of cars come in with whistles knocked off by Deer!

I'm not going to say they don't help but I can say with 1000% certainty they don't work all the time!

[SPEEDBEAD.]

I firmly believe that the deer do hear the whistles but I dont feel that is a positive outcome.

 

Here's the problem: If that whistle spooks the deer, IMO you now have an animal that is MORE likely to run into the roadway and cause an accident.

[McAlpine]

Back in the day I hit a deer with my grandfathers car which had whistles on it.

 

Also, over the years it seems like most of the deer I have hit actually hit me.  They are running and run into the side of the vehicle or front quarter panel rather than actually get hit at my grill.  Can't imagine the whistles can do much of anything to prevent that.

[ClackerBuzz]

NO....you know what works.............. nothing, except paying attention and slowing down a little bit in known deer infested areas.....

x2. the only time you'll catch me doing 5 mph under the speed limit is in deer infested areas (ur road goes from having a field on both sides to a tunnel of trees).

 

the other greatest thing that has saved me from hitting tons of deer: honking the horn.  deer react quickly to sound. i'll go for the horn equally as fast as, if not faster than, my foot goes for the brake.  yes sometimes they just stare with that blank look but by far the majority of the time a horn gets their @#$ moving quickly. you can spook smart deer by just stepping on a twig in the woods. the horn spooks the smart ones and the dumb ones follow.

the problem comes when there are all dumb ones in the line of fire   

 

another tip: where there is one deer, there is many. they travel in packs so the rest of the herd can be 1/2 mile down the road.  basically i almost hit one lone deer, got my heart rate down and car speed up only to almost slam into the rest of the herd 1/2 mile ahead. so if you see a deer don't let ur guard down till ur out of the woods bc there are more around

[A-Jay]

They're all over the roads here (except during open season).

 

I think that the deer that cross roads routinely become desensitized by the whistles and ignore them. 

 

When in areas with deer (and one learns them quickly) I have to slow down considerably whether there are animals present or not; especially during low light conditions. 

 

Drivers here will put their flashers/hazard lights on when they see deer on or along the road to alert others the deer are there.

 

This has helped me a few times and I make sure to do it as well.

 

A-Jay

[Raul]

Ain´t whistles used to lure animals ?

 

No wonder why you hit a deer if you´re calling them.

[F14A-B]

Nope they don't work! Period. They just dont

[F14A-B]

Deer & Deer Hunting Magazine in like 90 or 91?

Had statistics on this very question... The whistle

Is apparently the same as the silent whistle we used to train Beagle hounds with in the 70's

They hear it we don't ....

Just as many road killed deer were hit with vehicles that had whistles... As was the case with

Vehicles that had no whistles.... Score is still 0 to 0

[Fishes in trees]

update to hitting deer:   yes, insurance will cover it.  yes, it will cost me $500 plus time.  no, I wasn't speeding.  yes, it was part of a herd, I saw most of them, it is the one you don't see that is the issue.  I was slowing down, hadn't slammed on the brakes, and it literally came out of the shadows and ran into me.

 

Basically, Missouri is one big deer crossing and I think that the deer herd, the conservation department and the body shops are in cahoots.  This makes deer #5 (or 6 depending on how you count) for me.  On further review, I don't think I did anything wrong, just one of those things.  Part of the cost of living in a rural area of the Show Me state.  I'm going to do some more research on the deer whistle thing.  Overall, right now, I think that they help more than they hurt.  I don't know if they wear out or not.  If they are something that should be replaced every so often, well, deer whistles are pretty cheap, compared to a $500 deductible.

[Fishing Cowgirl]

Just one request if you do have the deer whistles on your vehicle. PLEASE do not stay behind someone hauling stock or horses in a trailer as you travel. The animals can't get away from the sound and it cancause  them to injure themselves while trying to get away from the sound                                                                           

[F14A-B]

Op..... You asked about whistles? You.. Hit the deer?... Accidents with wildlife.. Domestic animals

Happen everyday! I saw a 500 pd. black angus hit

8 weeks ago! It's a very big difficulty.. I most certainly do not believe you did a thing wrong.

You don't have to be wrong to be in a Accident!

You now state you have hit up to 6 I assume whitetail deer... If you want to believe in the whistles.. Still... By all means... Use them

The End.. Stay safe!

[bigbill]

We put those deer whistles on our motorcycles after my son hit a deer. We came close but never hit one again. If my son didn't have the dirt bike experience he wouldn't be here today. He tee boned it, put it up on the handle bars and stopped so it could get off. He never dumped the bike. In a split second he used his body English to offset the balance of the deer. The dirt bike racing experience gave him that quick thinking reaction and knowledge. It saved his life.

[RipSomeLips]

I read an article about 7 years ago that was based on a study to proved the deer whistles have no positive effect. Here is a link to a short story from a local news station from 2012.

 

http://www.kake.com/news/goodquestion/headlines/Good-Question-Do-Deer-Whistles-Work--178039181.html

 

Sorry to hear about your accident, glad it wasn't more significant and you still got to go fishing! How was your day on the water?

[AQUA VELVA]

Read an artical some years ago when everybody and their brother was putting those things on their vehicles that said there was no scientific proof that they had any effect at all. It was a great marketing ploy by the first company to make them, thats for sure.

[Fish Murderer 71]

once you get the deer hair out of them they work pretty good!

[VAHunter]

Yes, they work.  My mother hit a deer with her car a couple years ago.  When my dad took the car in for repairs he had the garage put on the whistles.  Not even one week later, on the same road, that whistle called another deer right to my mom's car.  The deer's back leg kicked the whistle right off the car.  Needless to say dad did not replace it. 

[RAMBLER]

I've never used those whistles and I've never hit a deer, but, I have stopped dead in the road to let them run across the road in front of me.  I've stopped and looked at deer that were standing broadside in the road looking at me.  I've seen a lot of deer hit, in Michigan. 

Noises don't really scare deer unless it is associated with something that hurts them.  Unfortunately, getting hit by a vehicle with a whistle is not something they remember.  It is often fatal.

Deer whistles probably made a lot of money for the guy that dreamed them up.  I think they fit right in with banjo minnows and helicopter lures.

[WIGuide]

I'm with Rambler, I really don't think they work and look stupid. They also tend to fall off for no reason.