Sunday, December 23, 2018

C.S.I. = Can See It

Like several other deer around here, this one got hit by a car just before hunting season opened in November and lay dead on the road shoulder about 200 feet down the highway. This past season Franklin County, just inches to our west (I can throw a stone over the county line), had the biggest deer harvest in the state of Missouri: more than 4,000. Sorry, Bambi fans: The herd needed thinning. Worse than seeing a deer in the road shoulder is seeing half a deer.  That's to say nothing of the people in the car. Before you get all Awww about deer hunting, imagine your own car hitting a deer that rolls at 50 mph through your windshield onto you and your passengers.

Three, four, five days and I began to wonder: Who picks up the roadkill in Missouri?

Within a city's limits: Animal Control. (Hey, all of you who love to work with animals. . .)
On a county road: Missouri Department of Conservation, and don't call about anything smaller than a deer because they believe in nature taking care of its own.
On a state road: Missouri Department of Transportation.

They do it on call, but I didn't know that then. When scavenger birds picked at the carcass I looked the other way. Then I got all involved in whatnot and left town for a week. Came back and catching up on work barely left the Divine Cabin for a week to ten days. Then going for a walk I see this. Looks like a young deer (they're the most fearless and ignorant) who was broadsided.

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