This is a scientific Americans 60 second science.

I'm Jason Goldman.

Are you afraid of sharks?

What about snakes or spiders?

Put those fears aside, because in the US, you're far more likely to be killed or injured

by a deer bounding across the road.

Bambi and his kind caused more than 200 human deaths each year, plus some 29,000 injuries, all because

of 1.2 million collisions between vehicles and deer.

Most incidents occur in the eastern U.S. where deer thrive without

natural predators like wolves and mountain lions. That's the region in the U.S.

where deer vehicle collisions are such a problem and where it seems like an effective

large carnivore restoration could make a really big difference. University of

Washington Wildlife Biologist Laura Peru. She thinks it would help to reintroduce predators like mountain lions, also known as cougars, pumas, or panthers, to parts of their historic range from which they've been driven out.

Crunching the numbers, the researchers say that bringing the big cats back to the eastern

US would mean 22% fewer collisions between cars and deer over three decades. Each year

would see five fewer human deaths,

680 fewer injuries, and a savings of some 50 million dollars.

Truggers have shown that they can coexist in close proximity with people with very few conflicts in a lot of areas out west.

Still, some folks might be understandably nervous about this kind of plan.

After all, reintroducing predators doesn't come without risks to pets and to livestock

and very occasionally to people.

You know, our fear of large carnivores is so primal and ingrained that I don't think it's

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