After almost a year of allowing its citizens to dine on big-game animals struck and killed by cars, Montana officials consider its meals-under-wheels program a success.
Whether Oregon follows suit as the 38th state to allow its citizens to feast on their bumper crop of road-killed deer and elk is a bandwagon that Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife leaders won’t jump on or off.
“Our agency position has been … whatever,” says Ron Anglin, the ODFW’s Wildlife Division administrator. “If that’s what you want to do? Whatever.
“But be careful what you wish for,” he says.
Most big-game animals struck and killed by vehicles aren’t fit for human consumption, Anglin says. The kind of trauma that results in
the deer or elk’s death often scrambles the innards to a point where precious little meat, if any, is salvageable.
Drivers allowed to salvage a black-tailed deer they hit likely would burn more calories processing the carcass then feeding on it, not to
mention those dragging home an animal they found after it had been lying on the side of the road for who knows how many hours.
But Oregon traditionally has been tolerant to alternative lifestyles, and going carrion could join that alt-ilk if the Oregon Legislature
gives its blessing when it convenes next month in Salem.
Anglin’s open to the concept, but not with fork in hand.
“I’ve picked up a lot of road-kill that were ‘fine,'” Anglin says. “Then you open them up, they’re just gross.
“As a person who loves to eat game meat and a biologist who’s handled many of those things, I wouldn’t eat one,” he says.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials certainly weren’t too keen on it when its Legislature enacted its road-kill program that went
live in January.
“We had a lot of concerns,” says Jim Kropp, the Montana agency’s chief of law enforcement. “There were a lot of challenges, in terms of
implementation. It’s not without its own set of circumstances, but generally it’s worked pretty well.”
Montana first surveyed several other states with collision-to-consumption programs and discovered the guts of implementation caused the most heartburn for wildlife officials, police and those with ran-down-dinner plans.
The state came up with a free online permitting process for citizens to quickly authorize their own road-kill salvage. Game wardens are
instantly notified of every downloaded permit and can inspect any carcass for signs of poaching.
Also, law-enforcement officials can write quick permits at the scenes of accidents.
Almost 800 such permits were issued through mid-November, but Kropp says Montana officials have no idea how many road-kill meals Montanans got out of them.
“In many cases, they open them up and find out that it’s not good,” Kropp says. “I think that happens a lot. It’s a concern from a
human-health standpoint.
“Sometimes, though, they’re after, basically, the antlers,” he says.
That’s one of the main reasons why past road-kill bills haven’t developed much traction in the Oregon Legislature.
Some wildlife cops, such as Lt. David Gifford of the Oregon State Police’s Fish and Wildlife Division, fear some would abuse the program
as a way to literally put a dent in Oregon’s best big-game animals.
“That would be a great way to get a trophy deer, if you want to hunt it with your rig,” Gifford says.
There have been cases of people fortifying their trucks for just that purpose in Oregon, Gifford says. Same for Montana, Kropp says, but he says that has nothing to do with the state’s road-kill rules.
“That occurs whether you have this kind of law or not,” Kropp says.
In the past, the road-kill bills haven’t advanced far enough to get a vote in either a House or Senate committee. So far, Anglin says, he’s
not heard any rumblings of another grill-to-grill bill for this session.
Others have asked the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission for road-kill collection blessings, but so far, just animal rehabilitation
experts have received permits for roadside shopping.
“They’re great for rehabbers to feed to hawks,” Anglin says. “Just not humans.”
