formspring.me
How do they get the deer to cross at that yellow road sign?
A moderately sized team of researchers comb forests, meadows, and barns in a hunt for newly birthed fawns in order to begin conditioning for the real world. The baby deer, taken gently around the torso by gloved hands, are brought into an experimental learning center and are then dropped in a makeshift woods-to-roadway stage created completely out of cotton fabrics with fluff.
Cue the yellow sign. The yellow crossing sign is enlarged for ease of sight in this makeshift woods-to-roadway staging and the fawns are placed in direct eye contact with an obvious zone for “yellow cross safety” as well as “no safety”.
Here, the magic begins. Whenever the baby deer crosses the fabric road that is not near the yellow sign, a mechanism is triggered that sends an RC-car covered with pillows into the animal, making the creature fall without injuring any part of its body. When the animal crosses near the yellow sign, nothing happens, and they are fed a treat of fruit and vegetables.
Through this process the fawns begin to understand that yellow sign = good and no sign = pillow whomping. This is why it is not recommended to bring pillows on camping trips, just in case the traumatized adult deer begin to have flashbacks of being hit by small electronic cars.
Yes, this is exactly why people sleep on rocks when they go camping.
