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You can finally, legally harvest your roadkill in Oregon

By Eder Campuzano
The Oregonian/OregonLive
June 21, 2017 at 10:03 PM


In Oregon, under a road kill bill passed overwhelmingly by the Legislature and signed by the governor, motorists who crash into the animals can now harvest the meat for human consumption.(Pat Wellenbach/AP)

It used to be against Oregon law to harvest the meat of certain critters killed by the state's drivers. Gov. Kate Brown changed that with the stroke of a pen last week, approving a law passed without a single "no" vote in the state legislature.

The Associated Press reports that the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission has until January of 2019 to adopt rules for permits allowing the harvesting of meat from deer and elk killed on state roadways.

(What? Did you really think they'd let you do this without a permit?)

According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's current roadkill guidelines, only licensed furtrappers are allowed to handle protected animals killed by vehicles. (Other critters, such as coyotes, skunks and nutria were fair game.)

"It's not a legal method of hunting," the agency's site says.

The state's current roadkill guidelines come into play rarely enough (between 2007 and 2013, ODOT recorded 42,904 wildlife deaths) that some folks have broken them for years. A Republican official in far-flung Josephine County told the AP that residents there have harvested roadkill for years "and they never needed a law or permit to do it."

And if you're wondering how to prepare a dish made from roadkill, well, there are tutorials for that. Yum!

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2017/06/you_can_finally_legally_harvest_roadkill_in_oregon.html