Eating Roadkill Is Illegal in California. But That May Change | Hacker News Reader

Eating Roadkill Is Illegal in California. But That May Change

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I’ve eaten a lot of roadkill. Most often a lot of the meat is tainted and can’t be used. You can’t really see that driving from your car thinking why doesn’t someone just eat that but you might just get a single back strap from road kill, or just a breast from a turkey. Again, it’s not ever too easy and you’ve got to be careful so who’s going to do that for a family? On top of all that you’ve got to get grinders, vacuum dealers and bone saws, all that being said I’ve got a rear shank I’ll be cooking this weekend.

> By allowing salvagers to apply for a permit after collecting the animal, the law could give the poachers a ready-made excuse when caught with a contraband carcass: “I swear, officer, I just found it on the side of the road!”

The above is cited as a potential unintended consequence of legalizing roadkill salvage. Does anyone have a take on how likely that consequence would be to happen?

Is it not obvious from inspecting a carcass whether it died due to impact with a vehicle versus some other means?

Since the bill allows wounded animals to be killed after being found injured on the road, not just collecting actual road kill, the fact that an animal was killed by some other means than vehicle impact wouldn't suffice to establish that there was a violation of the law.

Growing up I had a family friend who was a park ranger in a popular hunting area (not California fwiw). The laws protecting wildlife from poachers are really strong and rangers take them very seriously. As a result, catching a poacher can often be a messy scenario. If it doesn't turn violent, you can bet the poachers will try everything to get out of catching the case. I don't think it's unreasonable that poachers would try to protect themselves with this defense.

That said, I don't think that potential wiggle room poachers may try to exploit should be reason to keep salvaging illegal. The only time I have ever heard of a poacher making that excuse was in an askreddit thread (yeah I know take it with a grain of salt) about LEOs getting guns pulled on them. In that story the ranger could clearly tell the animal had been shot, not hit with a vehicle, and I would imagine in many other cases a ranger would be able to tell the difference too.

I mean if they shot a deer, then ran it over with their car, it would look like a deer that was shot then ran over. You'd have to mangle the animal severely to make a rifle/bow wound difficult to find.

> I mean if they shot a deer, then ran it over with their car, it would look like a deer that was shot then ran over.

While no doubt an actual autopsy will often distinguish "run over and then shot" from "shot and then run over" (note that the bill allows "dispatching" animals that are wounded but not killed on the road, so there being a clear bullet/arrow/etc. wound, even if it can be established that it came from the person who collected it and not previously and non-fatally, is not determinative of a violation), its considerably costlier to distinguish violations from permitted conduct, which makes enforcement harder and promotes violations.

  autopsy

necropsy

> Does anyone have a take on how likely that consequence would be to happen?

Very probable, has happened yet. To fake a car kill is a well known alibi for crimes against endangered species like critically endangered Iberian lynx.

If people are allowed to retire the corpse and eat the animal, how the administration could look for evidence of illegal shooting or traps before the evidence is buried or eaten?. Anybody could just shoot, and then other people could use a SUV and have a free pass to violate any hunting law.

On the other hand, in most countries meat for human comsumption must be examinated by a licensed veterinary to avoid spreading diseases to cattle and people. Ill and confused animals are more prone to end as roadkills. Rabies, roundworms or Trichinose could increase amongst human population.

"While roadkill cuisine may not yet be mainstream" (like it will be someday)

"stereotyped hillbilly eating roadkill has been replaced by an environmentally and food conscientious middle-class urbanite"

lol am i reading the onion?

I grew up in NH. They have a different approach: https://www.fosters.com/news/20181006/roadkill-for-dinner-pr...

In Maine people used to seek out the local wardens to get on the list for moose hits because they liked moosemeat.

It's pretty sickening driving south, where deer populations are so thick and there aren't the winters and hunters to check them, to see so many roadkills in the ditch just rotting and going to waste.

Why is this illegal to begin with? I grew up in Michigan and it was very common to call a charity to collect the meat after hitting a deer.

In Minnesota they take them to the International Wolf Center to feed the pack (if within 150 miles I believe).

Why not decompose the carcass if you're doing this for ecological reasons? Encouraging consumption just makes it seem like a cruel not-solution for the poverty problems in this state.

A lot of people like wild game. And why let it go to waste, especially when it would likely be displacing some other form of food consumption?

Unless you manage to luckily find a fresh kill, isn't it generally a bad idea to eat meat that was left out in the sun on the road for an indefinite amount of time? Even if you cook it?

Around here, some nights it seems that the deer are trying to get run over!

I have literally, no joke, come around a bend to find two deer fighting in the middle of the road at 10:30pm. I see fresh roadkill (as in: wasn't there yesterday) pretty often on my drive to work in the mornings.

Right, but the question is that roadkill fresh enough to be cooked for consumption? It's one thing if you killed it yourself and bagged it up to be cooked, it's another if that deer had been laying there all night.

Unless, it's somehow sanitary or safe to eat raw meat that was also left outside for the same amount of time, so long as you cook it thoroughly after.

In areas where people are hungry, hitting a deer and being forced to leave it to rot on the side of the road is a real tragedy.

One deer is enough meat for a whole family for many months.

Why not raise pigs or chickens, for a simple and more reliable meat source than chasing deer with a car? If hitting a deer is needed to feed a family, then all the people who don't get lucky starve to death.

That is done. If you live in a rural area, hitting a deer is not uncommon. If you take it home to eat it though, you're poaching. A game ranger told us on a class trip one time after a student asked about hitting a deer if you could eat it. He said, "If you hit a deer, call us. We know lots of hungry families, but don't load it up and taking it home. That's illegal."

last time i did the math an average deer offsets something like $425 worth of beef, and that was a conservative estimate. i know road kill tends to have a bit of damage, depending on the impact area, in any case thats a lot of meat to waste. Elk, are even more meat too.

The hardest part is the timing, it really needs to be a collaborative effort between motorists, an agency (like) CHP, and a number of charities that are able to collect the animal quickly.

I remember hitting a deer as a kid. My parents called the cops because it was hurt but not dead, when the cops showed up they called a charity, killed the dear and fed some people in need. Kinda makes sense IMHO.

How is giving free food to poor people cruel?

Food that was killed by accident, by non-domesticated animals that are probably gamey, and have been out on the street to spoil for who knows how many hours? As opposed to giving people food that other people eat.

Logistically, I don't get how roadkill could be fit for human consumption unless immediately bagged and stored.

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