roadkill

[e_dog]

what to do about this? is it best to remove it (or encourage the relevant authorities to do so) as soon as possible, for the purposes of removing unsightliness, public health threats, and out of respect for the dead; or, is it best to let it lie there for a while, as a (morbid) warning, so as to warn motorists to take heed, to be vigilant lest they become the unintended killers of fine fuzzy creatures?

[Doreen Peri]

i'm glad you brought this up, e-dog!

just the other day, my daughter and her friends were walking home from school and saw a wounded deer. His leg was bleeding and he was lying by the side of the road. He must have been hit by a car.

The father of one of her friends called the animal control office or the aspca or some authority and all he got was voice bots and never got to a person to report it. He left a message, but who knows if they ever did anything.

Very sad.

[abcrystcats]

Of course it's best to remove it. Dead bodies breed disease and attract other animals (and even children sometimes!) who could also be hit. Furthermore, there have been several times when I thought a dead animal was a live one and swerved to avoid it. That could cause an accident.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is any "authority" who takes the job of removing dead animals from the road very seriously. They do if it's a dead deer or an elk or something, but little animals just get left. My suggestion is to get a shovel and just be a good Samaritan and do it yourself. Ideally, you would want to leave the body under some bushes and shovel a few piles of dirt on it to help decomposition and minimize stench.

Doreen, was that a live, wounded deer? How horrible! Animal control usually won't do much about that type of situation. It's not a pet, so they just let nature take its course, which means the deer suffers a long, lingering death. A possible alternative if you are ever in that situation again is a private wildlife rehab organization. You can usually find them on the web. They are sometimes pretty compassionate and will try to go out and rescue the deer and give it medical attention. I say "sometimes" because I've heard horror stories about them too. I have no idea how reliable those stories were, so I won't repeat them.