Montana just passed a law making it legal to harvest road kill. If a driver hits a large animal (how large is large?) it is now legal to print out a permit on his/her computer and harvest the meat. This is a whole new use for Sport Utility Vehicles. Kind of puts the "Sport" into it . . . .
The damage from just hitting a dog can sometimes be costly... can't see everyone just running out and hunting deer or hogs or whatever with their truck. But then again.....
You know how many Deer and Moose are killed every year by vehicles? Those are accidents, usually happening in the evening when the animal is heading to shelter for the night or sometimes in early morning when they are heading to a water supply. But in many states it is illegal to harvest the meat because hunting those animals requires a permit and has to be done in certain seasons...so animal carcasses on the side of the road are common sights. When one is reported to the highway department they have to pay for the removal of the carcass and cleaning up the road. But letting the person who hit it, assuming they survive, call someone to come get and process it for the freezer makes good sense. But I can see where allowing it could lead to hunters driving around for hours trying to 'bag' a freezer full of meat. Not likely to become a common occurrence though.
Our laws are strange regarding road kill. If we hit, say, a deer then we're not allowed to pick it up and take it home. However the car behind us CAN!! Seems a bit daft to me.
Really daft! I would harvest it if I was feeding my carnivores if I owned animals such as lions and tigers or even feed my dog if that was what I needed, but I don't think I would harvest it for feeding my family. I would think there would be a lot of damage to the meat. What a great idea for those who are willing to do it, though. There is a lot of waste out there with these carcasses and there are plenty of hungry enough people to utilize them. Ohio, by the way, doesn't pick up carcasses anymore thanks to EPA rules. They ( the state/county) cover the dead animal with leaves or wood chips and let the carcass decompose right along the road.
