Roadkill deer collection not a job for the faint of heart — or stomach

In an era of tight budgets, why don’t we just drag deer off to the side of the road—far enough away so that scavengers don’t become roadkill themselves—and then let the scavengers and decomposers provide their clean-up services for free?[7] Why do we dedicate so much time, money, and sheer physical exertion to transforming carrion into trash? The m... See more

"I stopped being grossed out when I started getting hungry and thirsty. I had to eat. And this was the job that was available," Jackson said. "You got child support looking at you in the face. And after so long it just became natural to me. To pick up a deer or a raccoon or a skunk, it's natural. I know how to get it."

He told me he could eat a san... See more

The subject of non-human victims of car accidents (often referred to as “roadkill”), much like the subject of food waste, may be a tough one for some animal advocates to parse ethically: on the one hand, there is no animal lover that wants to see animals hit by vehicles, as much as this may be an inevitability in a car-focused culture (and some peo... See more

While all kinds of animals get hit, deer are the most common victims. What’s more, autumn is rutting season for deer, which means they have one thing on their mind — and it’s not watching out for cars on highways.

Yes, during the transformation of death into life we may have to catch a glimpse of something we don’t want to see, or a whiff of something we don’t want to smell. But maybe our willingness to endure these kinds of experiences is part of what it means to pay our respects to the dead. And maybe the more attention we pay to the animals on the side of... See more