How to eat road kill in Maine

By Julie Harris, Bangor Daily News Staff

You’re driving along the highway, minding your own business, when you whiz past the carcass of a dead deer.

You do a double take because it looks perfectly OK, except that it’s dead, and ask yourself, “Could I take that home to eat?”

After all, the crows, hawks and other carrion-eaters will get around to it eventually and rip it apart. What a waste of good meat. Right?

Road kill was in the news recently when presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy admitted he left a dead bear cub in Central Park in Manhattan 10 years ago after he picked it up on a road in upstate New York. His prank had been a mystery until his recent confession.

Dozens of white-tailed deer die on Maine’s roads every year. So do moose and a handful of turkeys and bears. It seems like it would be easy to do the same thing in Maine — pick up a dead animal and take it home or deposit it elsewhere.

Well, maybe not.

Since Kennedy brought it up, and Maine has a lot of road kill, it seems like a good time to settle how and when you can eat it.

Although it is perfectly legal to pick up road kill in Maine, there is a process for keeping it. Ignoring that process could net you a $500 minimum fine if you’re found out.

Maine has laws regarding possession of wildlife, which in the case of a dead animal on the side of the road, means you need a special permit to keep it, according to Lt. Aaron Cross of the Maine Warden Service. 

That is especially true for the four big-game animals of moose, deer, bear and turkey. But in Maine it’s illegal to possess any wildlife, living or dead, without a permit.

Any law enforcement officer can issue the permit for road kill, so it’s not necessary to call in a warden, Cross said.

As for the safety of eating road kill, Cross said he wouldn’t do it unless he knew it was a fresh carcass from a collision with a vehicle. There is no good way to figure out how long an animal has been lying around dead and how the meat might be affected, especially this time of year when the road asphalt holds the heat, he said.

The bottom line is there are no road kill safety guidelines for consumption. You have to use common sense. So, if you hit a large game animal, and it isn’t smashed to smithereens, ask the law officer for a permit to keep it and it’s yours.

Another option is to allow the officer or warden to notify one of the state’s dispatch centers, which all have lists of people who would be willing to take it. Often, wardens know of people who may be struggling to feed their families and could use the meat, Cross said.

There are animals you will not be allowed to keep no matter what, such as a dead lynx, owl or other birds of prey, or any that are on the threatened or endangered species lists. Those animals, along with any federally regulated waterfowl, are turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, he said.

Cross said the permits help the state keep count of the deer kills. If there are enough in a certain area, it can affect the number of antlerless deer permits given out for that region.

So happy road kill hunting. Be sensible. And please don’t dump it in a local park.