How many of you stop to look at road kill

[RLDilworth]

ok It's your turn

[Nina]

I wish it was legal here in PA to take roadkill....well it is, but only if you contact the game commission and pay them for the animal you want to take. $25 for a pheasant, $100 for a deer, that's ridiculous. Who wants to pay for something that got hit by a car, died on the road, and is probably damaged to some degree. All roadkill here in PA should be free for the taking, good practice for people like me who can't afford to buy specimens all the time. lol

[George Roof]

If I stop, it's usually so I can back up and run over it again.  Someone's always bringing in crap here that was roadkilled and "hardly messed up at all."  I like to insure they can't make that statement.  The state is the worlds worst for that.  They're always bringing in road killed otters and beavers blown up twice their normal size.

[AndyO]

I stopped for the first time this past winter. I thought I witnessed someones dog get hit. Stopped to see if I could do anything and it turned out to be a real pale coyote. I took it and now it's in the freezer.

My cousin works for the highway department and thinks it's funny bringing me rotting deer heads (minus the rack of course).

[Kerby Ross]

I did it when I lived in Kansas (1974-1986). Back then the fur market peaked in the late 70's early 80's. Back then picking up road kill fur bearers was legal and very profitable. You couldn't pick up a road kill deer though without a tag from DPS/Highway Patrol etc..

I ended up selling most of the fresh road kill coon, coyotes, bobcats, etc.. with a fur harvesters permit. And I believe you could only do it while they were in season.



Kerby...

[Samantha.]

I stop if its a fox or other ferals, but not for a native mammal, like roo's, koala's, echidna's or wombats.
(In my part of Oz I cant work on those without paying a ridiculous license fee per year. Its a shame really)

[JonHarleTX]

Considering, I am a bird taxidermist, and 99% of all birds are protected.. I seldom stop.  Mammals don't twink my imagination as much as a pile of feathers on the yellow line.. Although I did hit a porcupine and stopped.. just to look.. I have never seen one before..

Birds usually don't fare very well at all when combatting against a vehichle, so stopping is usually a moot desire.. I will make  exceptions.. especially if it is something that I cant make a simple identification of by slowing down.  Then my curiosity gets the best of me and around I turn.. OR if it looks to be something on the rare side of life, in good enough shape that the museum I work for could benefit from it in some degree.

Jon

[joeym]

I stopped and looked at a freshly killed 5' alligator one time when I was near Avery Island, LA (Tabasco Country).  I really wanted that gator, but my better half kept me honest.  Also, he wasn't totally dead yet.  I did not want the local headlines to read "Mississippi redneck hospitalized and arrested after wrestling with half dead, totally pissed gator"!

[WillinghamsTaxidermy]

I always stop for roadkill when I'm riding my bicycle, and most of the time I can mount it in some way or another. I've found 7 squirrels this year in our neighborhood alone, and all but 4 were completely life-size mountable. 3 of the unmountables had smashed up heads, and another one had a big road rash down the side of his body. I only mounted the head of that one. I skinned the ones with damaged heads and tanned the pelts as wall hangings.

[Leslie]

We get deer almost everyday hit by cars in my area. If I know it's less than an hour old, maybe I'll stop. It keeps someone else from bring it to me twelve hours later to have it processed. Then, of course, I have to tell them no. I have mounted a gray fox that was road kill, but the ears slipped. I have the fox on display in my shop, and if someone brings in a roadkill to mount, I plan to show it to them, so they know the risk they are getting into.

[KevinH]

Yea I stop, but most fo the times just to see what it is and how bad of shape its in.  Ive picked up foxes before that were in good shape.  ANd a coon once or twice, but nothing big like a deer or something.

[Asher]

I'm with a lot of other folks so far on here. There are restrictions here as to picking up fur bearing animals off the road, which you need a license for and it has to be in season, then you work on skinning the critter than was just hit by 2+ tons of metal that turns into a mess with a low chance of minimal damage (slippage). I always like to play the odds in my favor, and roadkill most of the time won't pay off in the end. That doesn't mean however that in the dead of winter when the average temps are cooler that I won't stop and just make sure, taking a look is at least worth my time.

[Jan Van Hoesen]

In MI you can only pick up road kills if they are in season and you have a proper hunting license.  But I have a scientific collectors permit and can pick anything up all year long in MI.  But why bother with a summer coat fox or such?  I do some rehab work for the DNR so pick up some animals as food for rehab critters.  I always keep my eye out no matter what time of year as you never know what you might find.  I only stop when it looks like it might be in decent shape for food or mounting.
Jan

[WillinghamsTaxidermy]

I don't think there's any roadkill restrictions here in Florida. I've displayed my mounted squirrels in a few places, with a description saying they were road kills, and I've never once gotten in trouble for it.

[mike welch]

This last past week stop me for awhile from picking anything up, lol I saw a nice coon on side of road stopped went up no apparent smell looked good so I grabbed his tail and thats all that ended up in my hand  lol than the smell came ... stinking thing should have known better 95 degrees outside  (like saying said nothing good free)