Roadkill: Ethical and Pragmatic

Wife: I'm not comfortable driving my van any more than I need to until it is in the shop.  May I take your car to town?
Me: Well, I don't really...
W: Really?  Are you really going to say you do not want me to drive your car the ten mile round trip to town and back?  Is that what you are going to say?
Me: You are right and have a right to be offended.  I am sorry.  Take my car.  I will see you when you get home.

(thirty minutes later the phone rings)

W: So I am at the auto body shop.
Me:  You're where?
W: They say it will only cost $500 to fix.  I hit a turkey.  I am so sorry.
(silence)
W: I am alright though.  (Sob) Hello?
Me: Do you have any idea how hard it is to hit a turkey?

Actually, I might have dropped the f-bomb in that last sentence.  "Do you have any idea how hard it is to hit an f--king turkey?"

The fourteen pound suicidal hen met her little poultry god on Friday morning; before noon she was chilling in the freezer.  To my bride's credit, she did all the butchering herself.  When it is all said and this hen will contribute to four or five meals for our family of five.  Expensive meat when you have to repair the vehicle.  The meat is free, however, if another person's car serves as the agent of destruction.

Not the cheapest meat we've ever served at the table.

There is a taboo to eating roadkill that comes down to nothing more than posturing for status.  Mention roadkill to your average hunter who knows how to field dress and prepare wild game and he will often stick up his nose talking about how the meat flavor would change in the couple of hours the carcass laid on the road.  That same hunter, however, will serve with pride steaks cut from the big buck he killed at dusk last year and had to track the next morning. 

I'd bet five bucks the same hunter could not tell the difference between summer sausage made from deer as the beef sausage that can be bought on sale at the local grocery, but that won't stop him from spending two to three times as much to have his deer ground and mixed.  I'd even give even odds he wouldn't be able to tell good quality grass fed ground chuck from his ground venison.  To the extent the taste of wild food is superior to what we bring home from the super store speaks to the quality of cut-rate meat and not some mystical superiority of wild game.

Field rules for proper food safety still apply but the issue of scavenging versus hunting is a matter of status and pride, two things to which the philosophical mind learns to be indifferent.  Moreover it is a simple way for industrious but cash strapped families to eat far above their pay grade.  If you are living paycheck to paycheck, you can pick up high quality meat off the side of the road or pay for the privilege of consuming pink slime.  Eighty pounds of deer burger or seven pounds of turkey eats just the same whether or not there is a picture of camouflaged hunters to put on Facebook or not. 

Some people make an ideology out of eating road kill as a form of waste not want not sustainability, or as a escape vegan-ism, good for them.  Some people make it their source of protein for years or decades, I admire their dedication.  In the seventies I think a lot of us did, to help make ends meet.  I just know that it is free and if something is free it means I can use my dollars on something else.

Nom, nom, nom

way to

I'm a hunter.  I like those photos.  I look forward to taking those photos of my children as they learn to hunt but hunting is a matter of connection to my inner predator.  It is part of humanity's nature.  So is scavenging.  Scavenging, may not be a year-long season (I'd have to witness an accident and be close to home to pick up a deer in July or August) but it is a much longer than the either the deer gun season and the bow season combined.  It is also much more flexible for the individual who may not be able to get off work for the gun season or put in the time to harvest deer with a bow.

Before you do anything, however, you are going to have to figure out your local rules and regulations.  If you home process your meat, most states still required you to get a tag in order to take procession of roadkill, and that process can be either more or less user friendly.  If you are going to take the meat to a processor, you will need to show them the tag before they will cut the meat for you. 

Wisconsin requires a tag for possession not only for deer but  for most road kill and when we tried to obtain one for the turkey Friday morning it became abundantly clear after four or five phone calls that if anyone did know the process, they had the day off (Saturday morning is the fishing opener after all) and would get back to us on Monday.  The plain fact is that it depends in large part upon your local warden.  If you are going to collect roadkill, get to know them.  Ask them how they understand the law and would advise you to proceed.

Secondly you need to find roadkill and get to it before other scavengers find it or the meat has an opportunity to spoil.  In Western Wisconsin we can have weeks where the temperature does not get above zero and spoilage is less of an issue.  At that temperature a deer carcass is as safe from bacteria as is in your freezer. 

If you drive the same route to and from work, it takes only a little practice to notice whether or not a deer was in the road eight hours earlier.  Taking into account personal safety and obeying all traffic laws (I'd be hard pressed to stop along our busy interstate to pick up roadkill that I had not personally hit).  After finding your roadkill, obeyed your local laws and loaded it, the next step is to get the carcass field dressed and either put it up yourself or to a processor who can get the meat ready for your plate. 

If you are scavenging in winter one hassle is you may find yourself attempting to field dress a brick of ice.  If a local locker is going to cut the meat for you, you can check with them beforehand to see if they will do this for you.  If you are doing it yourself, you might have to hang it in the garage and let it thaw slightly before prepare it for processing, but no longer than is absolutely necessary.  Personally, I'd just keep a tub of warm water to warm my hands up in and proceed right away.  If you need to be taught the details, it is easiest to have someone teach you but if that is not an option, there is always the internet.

A "Can-Do" Wisconsin attitude

After I field dress a deer, sheep, or any other large mammal, I will cut young animals into rough roasts, wrap them and put them in the freezer for later use.  If it is an older animal I will cut the animal into quarters and place them in the freezer.  When convenient we use a grinder to make our own ground meat and use the bones to make soup stock.

Can you come up with an excuse to not make use of roadkill while still complaining about how hard it is to get by?  Of course you can.  Do I want to hear about it?  Only if you think this lady would find your story compelling.