DEER WHISTLES DO NOT WORK!

I first read about this in Fred Rau’s RoadBike articles (August and September 2005).  Unfortunately I cannot find the articles online.   Here is a summary of the important points:

Humans respond to frequencies between 20Hz and 20,000 Hz.  Deer respond to frequencies between 1,000Hz and 8,000Hz.  If a person with good hearing can’t hear it, then the deer can’t hear it either.

Please be vigilant.  Don’t trust a piece of plastic.  Don’t even trust the powered units: they also emit frequencies that are above the range that deer can hear.

Fred Rau does a great job describing the Texas A&M research in the August 2005 RoadBike.  Here is a summary of those findings. 

Here is Roy Truelsen’s response to a Rider magazine’s January 2001 “Hornet Deer Alert” article by Clement Salvadori.