Deer + Humans Means Disaster.

Wildlife added to human life many times equals disaster. At least that's the case in states where the deer population is burgeoning despite more people moving into their habitat. Frequently, the results are car crashes, as well as damaged crops, shrubs and lawns.

Examples of "Bambi's" destructiveness:

* Deer cause, on average, 15 accidents every day on Connecticut highways. The state also has the highest rate of Lyme disease in the country (an illness carried by deer ticks that can be transferred to humans).

* Georgia has 71,000 deer-vehicle collisions a year on its highways, resulting in $142 million in damages. Soybean farmers lose $5 million annually to deer browsing on the crops.

* Michigan drivers hit 55,666 deer in 1994 causing five deaths and 1,753 injuries; deer crashes increased to 67,000 in 1997.

* Deer destroy $11.3 million in landscaping plants and shrubbery every year in New York; apple orchards lose $2.4 million in crops to the foraging animals every year.

Lawmakers are looking for answers.

"We have a serious problem with deer overcrowding, and traditional control measures, like recreational hunting, no longer work in many areas," says New Jersey Assembly-woman Connie Myers. Her bill, similar to one vetoed by the governor last year, is moving again though the Legislature.

It would waive hunting restrictions for counties, towns and airports, as long as the entities filed a deer management plan. Professional hunters armed with high-powered rifles and silencers could then be hired to thin the animals. Silencers are banned in the state, as is hunting with rifles.

Also being considered is legislation that would lift the state's 97-year ban on Sunday hunting.

The Kansas Legislature recently passed a law that allows the Department of Wildlife to issue more hunting permits to out-of-state hunters. It also allows landowners to resell permits to out-of-staters. Lawmakers hope it will help cut down on the 10,000 car accidents caused by deer last year-a record for the state. Current estimates put the Kansas herd at 400,000 animals.

Animal rights proponents, however, decry increased hunting as a method of population control. Instead, they endorse birth control or relocation. But current contraceptives require that a doe be shot with darts containing the chemical twice within a 30-day period-a difficult task with wild animals. And the cost of capturing and inoculating 531 deer in Irondequoit, N.Y., over a four-year period was $250,000.