About 4.1 million Californians (from 2.0 million households) are enrolled in some form of food-assistance program. Yet, if they stopped to pick up a road-killed-deer, they would face massive fines and potential jail time.
Californians may have heard about a new state law that allows residents to collect/possess roadkill animals beginning Jan. 1, but state officials say that’s not actually true.
“There is no collection or utilization program in place. We are trying to avoid any confusion by misinformed citizens who think it is lawful to collect roadkill animals,” said David Bess, deputy director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and chief of the Law Enforcement Division.
State officials say anyone caught collecting or possessing roadkill could incur a $1,000 fine and six months in jail.
“It’s still against the law,” said Department of Fish and Wildlife Capt. Patrick Foy. “Nothing’s changed; there’s no difference from today and a week from today.”
Wildlife Traffic Safety Act, SB 395 stirred up confusion in October when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the legislation into law.
Here’s what’s really going on.
- The new law is not in effect until Jan. 1.
- It will not actually be legal to collect roadkill on Jan. 1 because there is no program in place (yet).
- The California Fish and Game Commission will work with other state agencies to establish a “wild game meat utilization program” no later than 2022 that will permit and regulate where people can collect roadkill.
- The department will create a roadkill reporting database to identify the most common wildlife-vehicle collisions sites. The database could help the state set up conservation efforts in those areas, officials said.
- Eventually it will be legal to take home roadkill, but only in certain areas. You will also need a permit and report what you take to the state.
- Under the new California law, the program will only apply to deer, elk, pronghorn antelope or wild pig; any animal protected by the California Endangered Species Act will be illegal.
The new law seems very tedious for Californians who simply want some highway hash for dinner. In comparison, Wisconsin passed a law five years ago that makes picking up roadkill much easier. If a motorist hits a deer between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., they simply contact the call center operated by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and report it, and they can then load the deer and take it home for processing. A police report is necessary, however, if the crash caused more than $1,000 in damage. This new program has saved the state thousands in disposal fees (the state contracts the removal of dead deer), and it also has put a lot of good venison in the freezers of Wisconsin families. About 26,000 whitetails are killed each year on Wisconsin roadways.
Why Deer Are Struck by Cars So Often
Fraser Shilling, co-director of the UC Davis Road Ecology Center, said deer are frequently hit by cars because they use roadways to avoid predators. In California alone, 20,000 deer are hit by cars each year. This pales in comparison to Pennsylvania, with 141,777 claims, according to the 2019 QDMA Whitetail Report. The four other top states for deer-car crashes include Michigan (87,959), New York (72,314), North Carolina (64,200) and Texas (60,857).
“Predators don’t like highways,” Shilling said. “So a lot of deer — and this is true of elk — they seem to hang around highways because they’re escaping their natural predators, and because they have no way of determining that vehicles are predators, they don’t avoid that risk.”
Shilling, who supports the bill, said a wildlife salvage permit program provides important data that can be used for conservation efforts. He also said the bill could also help improve traffic safety for Californians. Another bonus is salvaging roadkill prevents waste.
Once the program launches, it will take some time to tell if it is successful. Until then, roadkill is off the menu.
You can read the original article here.
