Collisions between cars and wildlife are notoriously bad for all involved, though sometimes lucky drivers walk away without a scratch and animals may receive a glancing blow that surprises them but doesn’t make them roadkill.
But how probable is it that a driver in Wyoming will hit a wild animal?
The Wyoming Game & Fish Department said annually there are about 7,600 vehicle collisions with big game, resulting in wildlife and personal injury costs.
A report from State Farm using 2024-25 data estimates that the odds of Wyoming motorists having an animal collision are 1 in 82. That makes the state the ninth highest at-risk state in the nation.
For the record, the list is topped by West Virginia, with odds of 1 in 40. The safest state is Nevada, with a probability of 1 in 966. Nationally, the average is 1 in 139.
Cowboy State Daily talked to some Wyoming motorists who have crashed into wildlife (or vice versa, depending on one’s perspective).
Beware Other Traffic
Michael McDill of Casper had a harrowing experience that involved a big buck deer and another driver who wasn’t paying attention to the scene.
McDill was westbound on the the city's Outer Drive, just past College Drive and before the Yessness Pond turnaround.
“The buck deer came charging up the right side incline so fast in front of me that I hit my brakes and laid on the horn,” he recalled. “I think it was running away from a dog.”
McDill said the deer jumped away from his truck but he clipped him in the rear anyway.
“He spun around in the middle of the road, and just about the time I got stopped, I was slammed into by a truck coming up behind me,” McDill said. “The other driver was watching the deer and did not realize I had stopped.”
What happened next is not included in the odds listed in State Farm’s study, which didn’t document what happens when another vehicle is also involved in the collision.
“(The truck driver) hit me so hard that it twisted my frame, totaling my truck and demolishing the drone of the other driver’s truck,” McDill said. “Luckily nobody was hurt.”
But what happened to the buck?
“He got up and trotted off the road,” he recalled. “Probably had a sore rear end for a couple of days.”
Mother Lives, Fawn Dies
Janet Cunningham said she and her husband were driving down the canyon on Highway 230 toward Laramie when a deer bounded in front of their truck.
“We barely missed her, but then her fawn was following and it ran into our right front tire,” she recalled. “It broke my heart to see the mother turn at the edge of the forest and look back for her baby.”
The couple stopped, as did the person behind them.
“The guy pulled the fawn off the road and told us it was dead,” Cunningham said. “We were thankful that it wasn’t just hurt badly and suffering.”
But it was nerve-rattling for the Cunninghams.
“I cried most of the way to Laramie,” she said.
Even if someone hasn’t experienced staring directly into the eyes of a moose they’re about to hit, it’s easy to understand their terror at what would happen next.
“We were on our way to see a (University of Wyoming) Cowboys game,” Jill Van Overbeke told Cowboy State Daily. “It was after dark in our trusty Toyota Highlander.
“We walked away but the moose didn’t.”
A Turn Of The Wheel
Even if someone hasn’t experienced staring directly into the eyes of a moose they’re about to hit, it’s easy to understand their terror at what would happen next.
“We were on our way to see a (University of Wyoming) Cowboys game,” Jill VanOverbeke told Cowboy State Daily. “It was after dark in our trusty Toyota Highlander.”
She remembered the moose just appeared in front of them.
“I was driving about 78 mph,” VanOverbeke said. “I turned the wheel a tiny bit and hit her head. The impact point was the driver’s side windshield and she was killed instantly.”
The animal dropped onto the middle of the interstate and was hit by many more cars, with several launching into the air.
“We ended up on the side of the road with the windshield smashed into a million pieces,” she said.
In addition to the moose, VanOverbeke’s diamond in her wedding ring was a casualty; she said it popped out.
“My son, maybe 10 or 11, was asleep in the back seat,” she said. “He sat up screaming his head off. My husband and I were OK, just stunned. I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn’t turned that wheel — it probably would have landed in our laps.”
To make matters worse, VanOverbeke said they missed the game.
Mother Coyote Took The Deer
Here’s an example of someone doing a good deed only to be at the wrong place at the wrong time:
Melissa Connely was at her home in Casper when she got a call from her sister, whose car broke down in Medicine Bow. On the way to pick her up, Connely came to Bates Hole, where she knew from experience there were a lot of deer, so she slowed down.
“Sure enough, around the bend, a herd was standing and there was no way to avoid them. I slammed on the brakes and hit a doe,” she recalled.
Connely said the damage was a caved grill and a busted headlight. The deer flipped over the hood and took out the side mirror before leaving the scene of the accident.
She said her two young girls and sister, who were traveling with her, were shaken.
“I didn’t know what to say to calm the girls,” Connely said, so she made up a story.
“I told them that mommy coyote would take the deer to feed her puppies,” she said. “That seemed to help.”
She worried about what would happen if she hit another deer and broke the second headlight.
“I was so sad (thinking) if the deer was killed,” Connely said. “It took years for me to drive at night again, and I still think of it every time I drive that stretch of road. I will never lose that sad memory.”
Close Call
In the case of Chesie Lee of Riverton, it was the animal that struck her — a gray area because State Farm does not list the odds of an animal colliding with a vehicle as opposed to vice versa.
Lee was driving on Wyoming Highway 135, on her way to Riverton from Laramie.
“I saw an antelope on the left side of the road that was beginning to cross the road in front of me,” she remembers. “I pulled over and came to a complete stop. I braced myself as it knocked my sideview mirror across the road when it made a 180-degree turn, avoiding collision with my car door. I don’t know if it was injured.”
Lee wasn’t able to reattach the mirror but otherwise came through the incident unscathed. That paled, she said, “to the shock of seeing it headed right toward me.”
Deer Most Often Hit
In its study, State Farm noted the industry processed 1.7 million claims involving animal collections nationally from July 2024 to June 2025. That’s about a 100,000 drop from the previous year.
About 1.1 million of the claims involved hitting deer. Autumn is the peak season for such accidents.
As Cowboy State Daily has previously reported, the end of daylight savings time is deadly for deer, and the number of deer getting hit on America’s highways jumps by 16% the week after clocks are moved back an hour and leaves more people driving in the twilight and dark.
Wyoming Game and Fish Department spokeswoman Amanda Fry said wildlife crossings, which are projects funded by her department, the Wyoming Department of Transportation, and wildlife and community groups, significantly lower the number of vehicle-wildlife collisions.
“Those are incredibly effective,” Fry said of wildlife crossings. “Underpasses and overpasses, coupled with wildlife-proof fencing, can reduce crashes by 80 to 90% and allow wildlife to cross roads and get to their seasonal ranges.”
Proper fencing and additional gates can help wildlife cross roads more quickly and avoid conflicts with traffic, she added, and reducing vegetation on the side of roads can make wildlife more visible to drivers.
Roadkill Can Be Taken
But what if you have a collision and a big-game animal is dead? Is it legal to take roadkill?
It is under Wyoming law, but there are requirements and restrictions.
You need approval from Wyoming Game and Fish before collecting roadkill deer, elk, pronghorn, moose, wild bison or wild turkey from vehicle collisions. You can request approval on an incident-by-incident basis through the 511 WYO ROADS mobile app.
But collecting roadkill wildlife can be dangerous. Game and Fish urges motorists to avoid collecting roadkill if traffic is on the highway. The entire animal must be taken and the inedible portions must be properly disposed of in an approved landfill.
You can’t collect roadkill within construction areas or national parks in Wyoming.
Parking off the road is required, and you must turn on your vehicle’s emergency flashers. Field dressing is not allowed on the roadway.
Kerry Drake can be reached at: Kerry@CowboyStateDaily.com
