There was a deer crossing the highway the other day and I began wondering about what they thought or understood about vehicles. Something more than DANGER?
I suppose deer see humans as other animals—unpredictable animals that can be friendly and helpful, or harmless, or destructive and dangerous. But animals nonetheless. Weird ones. Often noisy ones. Maybe smelly ones.
But do they notice those peculiar animals inside the vehicles? If so, do they have a concept of the humans controlling the vehicles, or maybe as just being held captive? Is knowing such things simply irrelevant to their needs?
According to my online research:
Deer possess notable cognitive abilities specifically adapted for survival in their ecological niche. While not capable of abstract reasoning or planning at the level of some mammals, deer excel in areas vital to their well-being—such as sensory acuity, learning and memory, adaptive foraging, and social intelligence.
Furthermore, they rank above domestic sheep and cattle and slightly below horses for the type of stuff happening in their head.
There’s really no need for deer to understand vehicles as anything more than life-threatening DANGER. But maybe there are some exceptionally brainy does and bucks out there having deeper thoughts about the meaning of life and their place in the universe, or imagining how their existence would differ if they could be transported around in one of those DANGER things. Maybe that’s what’s on their mind when they stand in the middle of the road. “Man, it would be cool to have one of those. In red.”
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