my friend nearly killed herself swerving for a cat - hit a pothole at speed and rolled her car about 4 times, amazingly pulled a muscle in her back no worse.

Whenever i mention that to someone they dont believe me!

in my 6+ years of driving, I've only ever hit a rabbit and a pheasant.

the rabbit i hit in the middle of the night, just before going over a hump-backed bridge on a country road in the middle of the night - the bloomin thing was so quick and i was literally feet away from the bridge when it decided it wanted to cross infront of my headlights couldn't do anything about it.

the pheasant on the other hand ... middle of the day a nice long straight national speed limit road with plenty of visibility and no other traffic about. i saw them both up ahead and slowed down to give them both chance to cross before i reached them and i also pulled into the middle of the road to encourage them further to the left of the road (they were going right to left). the first one had the intelligence to carry on the way they were going, the other decided to turn round at the last minute and fly into the front of my bonnet causing a rather large dent ... the silly thing didnt have the nouse to follow its mate!

so anti pheasant here!

One of the reps at the company i used to work for hit a roe deer...which almost destroyed his 4x4. Muntjac deer are always gettin hit round here due to the high numbers of them and i rather face a pheasant than these!

I`d have thought cars were the biggest pest, personally.

lol how can one introduced species be 'even less native' than another?

tbf rabbits & 'wild' pheasants are classed as naturalized species, they arnt indiginous to this country but they have become part of our countryside....but when you release 40 million of anything annually into the countryside then that is most certainly going to have a detrimental effect on other wildlife species!


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Thanks, I know what is legal and what is "custom and practice".

Nobody has stopped me in over 11 years from picking up road kill.

They even made a tv programme about it didn't they?

When there is case law on the subject, I will start getting worried.

Let me know!

I hit a pheasant the other day but it was totally accidental (I don't swerve unless very safe to do so btw). I have lived here (grouse and pheasant estate), for 4 and a half years and have only hit 2 pheasants in that time, even though there are a few on the road, at times.

I did hit a badger a few years ago. I saw it running alongside the road, I moved across to give it more room, it then darted out, and I swerved the other way, but it turned and I hit it I stopped and made OH get out to make sure that it wasn't suffering. Luckily, it must have been killed instantly.

Helen

I know young lads round here go 'hunting' car in front with bull bars and everything - car behind to pick up whatever the lead car hits!!
Dunno how often it works tho. I dont go out trying to kill things but sometimes they commit suicide under my wheels!!
I have killed a bunny and a cat - both of which sprinted out right under my wheels on a 60mph road - nothing I could do
I have only once hit a pheasent
I was on motorway and one flew right across the road at window height. smacked right into my windscreen - nothing I could do but boy did it wake up my passinger

We have masses of them here, they are a pain in the !!!, the dogs go mad if they so much as hear them, they saunter around the garden driving them mad, we have large groups of them hanging around on the roads, there is a feeding station at the end of our garden, worse is the hooray henry's who pay a fortune to shoot them, we had them shooting within feet of the house on one occasion, soon sent them packing!!