One year after becoming law, Washington residents gathered more than 1,600 elk or deer accidently hit by vehicles.
“It’s just a no-brainer … you don’t have to send people on road crews to clear the highways so much, that meat doesn’t go to waste,” Jay Kehne, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife commissioner, told the Seattle Times. “If you hit a deer and you’ve got a car with $5,000 damage, the least you could do is get a little meat in your refrigerator.”
Many other states allow the salvage of roadkill including Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.
The Seattle Times reports state workers pick up between 5,000 and 6,000 roadkill elk and deer every year.
(Photo source: Grandview Outdoors)