Heads-up!  We have reached the peak of the deer breeding season.

And that could spell trouble for motorists.  Byron Schultz, with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, says “Deer get extremely active, especially bucks, and they tend to range a little bit further than they normally would.  And they will be hot, chasing the doe’s.  So people will have to be aware a lot of deer activity around this time.”

The breeding season typically lasts from the end of October through the beginning of December, Shultz said.  “But the time that its’ most heavy would be right about now until just after Thanksgiving.”  Schultz says deer aren’t just relegated to rural areas: “Typically sometimes deer can be close to suburban areas where you have little patches of woods.”

And if you see a deer in the headlights Schultz suggests your best bet might be to go ahead and hit it: “Your natural instinct is to swerve and try to avoid the animal, but sometimes that can do more harm than good.”

Schultz says Oklahoma's deer population has escalated in the last 20 years.  That, he says, is due to good land management and not as many hunters.