SEATTLE — Two deer somehow made their way onto the Interstate 5 express lanes between Mercer Street and State Route 520, just north of downtown Seattle.
“So there was {sic} two drivers there, one was in the express lanes, and one was on the main line… so one driver closed all the lanes of the main line of northbound I-5, and the other driver in the express lanes kind of chased them up north,” said Washington State Department of Transportation spokesperson Aisha Dayal.
Dayal said that thankfully, this happened around 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday when the express lanes were closed. The lanes open in the southbound direction at 5 a.m.
A Washington State Department of Transportation camera at East Galer Street along Lake Union showed the confused animals walking back and forth along the barrier as cars zoomed by on the other side.
WSDOT said they don’t usually come across wildlife in that area.
“To find them on I-5 is a little bit rare,” said Dayal.
What’s even more rare is being able to guide them off the freeway safely, which can be tricky.
“It is uncommon to find them alive, usually they find deer, or mostly like coyotes, or different animals already struck, and usually in that corridor of I-5 they find them in the Shoreline area, or on I-90 out east,” said Dayal.
This year in King County, WSDOT has reported 10 crashes involving wildlife. When looking at a map, you’ll notice all the incidents are outside Seattle city limits.
Across the state this year, there’s been 243 incidents.
If you see wildlife on a highway, WSDOT asks you to call 911 to report it.
©2023 Cox Media Group
