Oregon wildlife officials lukewarm on road-kill dining

[image]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      By MARK FREEMAN/Medford Mail Tribune:

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...Continue reading...