Yesterday morning I took my car into my local body shop to get an estimate. My front end was damaged from an encounter with a deer last week.
The 2+ year-old doe was my first confirmed road kill. Last summer, I was rammed by a spooked fawn, but I didn't stop and walk back to see if it had survived bouncing off my fender.
This time, I was coasting along at 30-35 mph, when I hear a crunch and I see the deer fly up and flip over my hood. It's rainin' fur. I gradually pull off to the side and stop to check the damage.
Feelings of mild shock and frustration course through me. Why did this have to happen to me again?! It was only last fall that a tree branch cluster fell onto the road right in front of me one morning. And while I narrowly avoided a direct collision with most of it, my hood was slightly dented and a corner of my windshield was smashed.
When I looked back down the shoulder of the road, I could make out the body of the expired doe. After examining the damage on my car, I walked back and looked at the animal. I'm guessing it was 40-50 lbs. A policeman who had quickly arrived at the scene, pulled it off into the grass. (I suppose, he did that so it wouldn't distract traffic.)
As I watched him do that, I could hear the crackling of car tires rolling over the shards of plastic that was once my front left turn signal.
Afterwards, I wondered whether I should've tried to take the deer home with me and butcher it. I don't think all the meat would've fit in my freezer. (And how would I've disposed of the remains without smelling up the communal garbage bin as the organs decomposed?)
I'd been wary of eating an animal that I'd guessed might have parasites (at least microbial). And coincidentally, just yesterday, I heard a report on NPR about Chronic Wasting Disease in deer. Recently, a pot of venison-laden chili at a firehouse cookout in central New York was found to be contaminated with the disease. It's a condition that affects the brain and spine of the critter. (Sounds like mad cow disease.) I didn't hear all of the report, but enough to know that it's been found in 11 states.
The report concluded with a remark from an expert who predicted that the disease would spread widely, through much of the nation. So maybe I should've harvested my roadkill and ate it. Might've been a last chance to eat disease-free venison.
(Or what if the deer had Chronic Wasting disease... and if I ate it, how long would it take to get holes in my brain?)
Posted by raacluse at April 13, 2005 01:16 PM