A reader in Alaska writes:
An average moose yields about 700 pounds of lean meat when recovered from a crash. Even if the crash is bloody and causes clotting, about 300-400 pounds of burger meat can be salvaged. Many churches, food banks and non-profits are on a call list. When a moose fatality is reported, they call folks on the list and are given an hour or so to harvest the meat. Folks consider it a privilege when it’s their turn on the list.
Another tells a story:
Early eighties and I’m at a small, rural college in Vermont. A friend and I were bombing along the desolate road to campus and a little deer, spots and all, leapt over a snow bank and directly into my path. The impact launched the fawn onto an icy patch on the road and it slid to a stop. We got out, and to our surprise and horror the poor thing was still alive and making an awful whining sound. We realized we had to put the animal out of its misery; the question was how. My friend suggested I drive over it, an idea that I quickly rejected. A rock to the head? A tire iron? We settled on suffocation – not terribly appealing but the best of a host of bad ideas.
So there I was, in the middle of the road, strangling a baby deer. As if on cue, another car came along, filled with fellow students coming back from – and you can’t make this shit up – a Greenpeace meeting. So I was a deer in the headlights strangling a baby deer. Quick explanations from my friend averted a beat-down (or at least the Greenpeace version of a beat-down). The deer let out one last breath, went limp, and all was quiet. There were a few tears.
Meanwhile, the town game warden – an old Vermont character named Donny – had been alerted and showed up post-strangulation. He made his way to the center of the drum circle, picked up the deer by the neck, looked at all of us and said: “Sunday Dinner.”
Another:
Great thread. I don’t have any roadkill stories to add, but I just had to write in because I’d never heard the term “car-harvested” used to describe take-home roadkill before. I laughed out loud when I read it. It’s perfect. Car-harvested! That’s why the Dish is the best.
Update from a reader:
Come on guys this is too easy – it clearly should be Carvested!
The Dish 