Motorists travelling north on Hwy. 35 will be greeted by this sign warning them to watch out for deer. A large sign also warns vehicles travelling south, and smaller signs in both directions are spaced at one-kilometre intervals. Two other roads with high deer-vehicle collisions will also have warning signs.

Nov 28 2007
New deer reflector signs arrive in Lakes District

By by Don Perdue LD News
Members of the Francois-Ootsa Sportsman’s Association (FOSA) were out bright and early last Saturday morning installing deer reflector signage along a four-kilometre stretch of Hwy. 35 just north of the ferry terminal.
FOSA spokesperson Gary Blackwell said the signs had arrived about a month ago, and it was just a matter of getting a work bee together to put the signs up.
“It was snowing coming across on the ferry this morning, and we were a little worried about the weather,” commented Blackwell, “but it seems to be cooperating.”
The FOSA work bee was hoping to get a second set of signs up along a section of road heading west from the ferry landing, near Nourse Creek later in the day.
Two big 8’x4’ deer reflector signs will be sitting at each end of the sections of road where statistics show the greatest number of deer-vehicle collisions.
In addition, four smaller signs will be placed at one-kilometre distances from each other, for a total of six signs in each problem section of road.
A third section of road that has high numbers of deer-vehicle collisions - a two-kilometre stretch along the Ootsa-Nadina Rd. - will have signs put up in the coming weeks.
“It’s a pilot project,” said Blackwell. “We raised the money ourselves, but the signs all have to be placed according to Ministry of Transportation (MOT) standards - a certain number of feet away from the road; a certain number of feet up in the air.”
Blackwell explained that the full impact of the signs will be seen at night.
“This new material that they’re made of is really, really reflective. We hope that vehicles will take notice f the signs in the problem stretches, and that the reflected lights will deter the animals from coming onto the road.”
Blackwell said that deer numbers are down this year due to the hard stretch they went through in last year’’s snowstorm-filled winter.
FOSA had originally raised money to install deer reflector lights along sections of road that had a high incidence of deer-vehicle collisions, but when MOT and ICBC decided to move to signs rather than lights, the decision was made to purchase signs.
“The signs were a little cheaper than the lights, but we’ll be putting the excess money we have left over towards wildlife preservation, probably something like buying hay and setting it out in the fields adjacent to problems road sections, so they can still feed in bad snowstorms,” said Blackwell.
He hopes to get in touch with Lakes District Maintenance to see if their road crews will aid in tracking deer-vehicle collisions throughout the winter.
“Hopefully, these deer signs will keep those numbers down,” he concluded.

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