Hunters and landowners in northern Minnesota are raising concerns about a corn spill along a railway, where they say at least 100 whitetails have been found dead along the tracks in recent weeks. Apparently a northbound train car full of corn opened up in transit somewhere near Thief River Falls, dumping its load for miles along the tracks and luring deer, which are in turn hit by trains.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has confirmed the accidental spillage to local news outlets but said the incident is not out of the ordinary.
Steve Porter lives between Thief River Falls and the Canadian border and has called attention to the corn spill and the ensuing carnage in a series of videos he shared to Facebook. Porter, who owns a deer farm in the area, explains in the first video, posted March 5, that for the last six to eight weeks, he’d been seeing wild whitetails and wild turkeys feeding along the tracks. He’s also heard similar reports from other residents in the area, who’ve also been finding carcasses near the tracks.
“There’s reports of dead deer like never before, up and down the railroad tracks” Porter says in one video. “I knew a car had opened up and [a friend] confirmed it. He said, ‘Yeah they had a car open up somewhere by Thief River, and it traveled on the train tracks along 59 all the way to the port of entry [to Canada.] And it’s nothing but salted corn the entire way.”
Porter tells Outdoor Life that based on the number of deer tracks and carcasses he’s found along the stretch of railway near his place — along with the other reports he’s gotten from friends in the area — there must be more than 100 dead deer along the 80- to 90-mile stretch that runs from Thief River Falls to Noyes.
“I would guess it’s somewhere between 100 and 200 deer,” Porter says.
A follow-up video that Porter posted to Facebook on March 5 shows multiple dead deer on either side of the railway, along with countless deer tracks in the snow between the train tracks.
“The deer get on the railroad tracks and eat the corn, and they think, ‘I can outrun the predator if I don’t go into the deep snow,” Porter explains in the video. “So they stay on the tracks, trying to outrun the train, and they just get pounded. There’s dead deer all over the place.”
The Minnesota DNR did not immediately respond to an email from Outdoor Life seeking clarification on the number of deer that have been killed as a result of the corn spill. It’s also not immediately clar An agency spokesperson told reporters Tuesday that accidents like this are common, but that “the deer aren’t typically fed on the railroad tracks at the hardest time of the year when they are starving.” The spokesperson also said the DNR had euthanized at least 13 deer along the stretch of railway that parallels Hwy. 59.
“I suspect when the snow melts this spring, we’re gonna find a lot of dead deer,” Porter says.