Date: 12/19/18 15:28
Why Do the Deer Cross the Railroad?
Author: jgilmore

This researcher thinks he has an answer:

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201812190005.html

Has anyone noticed this as well? Is it that big of a problem in the States? Do their tongues stick to the rails in cold weather?

JG

Steel worker solves mystery as to why deer cross rail tracks
By YASUHIRO HONDA/ Staff Writer

December 19, 2018 at 07:30 JST

Why do deer loiter around railway tracks?

That question puzzled Norihiko Kajimura, who serves as head of a development and planning team in the building material technology research section of Tokyo-based Nippon Steel & Sumikin Metal Products Co.
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Based on the finding, Kajimura formed a new hypothesis that even experts or railway companies have never come up with, that deer “enter the tracks because they want to lick the rails to ingest iron.”

To test his hypothesis, Kajimura scattered powdered iron over the ground and discovered that deer dug into the soil to consume the powder. When a deer licking the rails was captured on a video, he became convinced that his theory was correct.
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