January 24, 2022

Making Legal Use of Fresh Colorado Roadkill

(Photo from Utah state government)
An article in the Sopris Sun (Pitkin County) quotes a man who moved there from Alaska a few years back: 

“After I relocated to the Roaring Fork Valley, it was curious to me that the animals [along the side of the road] were left to scavengers, given my prior experience in Alaska,” says Missouri Heights resident Mike Fleagle, who moved here in 2018.

Fleagle is an Alaska Native (Iñupiaq tribe), former chair of the Alaska Board of Game and has hunted and lived off wild foods his entire life. 

In November 2018, Fleagle recalls spotting a just-hit buck in the center median on Highway 82, which was the first time he used the salvage permit dispensed by Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) and local law enforcement agencies for harvesting roadkill. 

With his roadkill buck, Fleagle cut and packaged roasts, stew meat and steak, made burger with purchased beef suet (raw, hard fat ideal for frying) and Italian sausage with purchased pork suet and then jerked some “for a special treat.”

He just called the sheriff's dispatcher to start the process. (In most places, the sheriff dispatch also talks to game wardens, although technically they are dispatched after-hours by Colorado State Patrol, since they are state agencies.)

There is a process for doing this legally, but if you visit the Colorado Parks and Wildlife and put "road kill" or "roadkill" into the search box, you get nothing. Likewise on the FAQ page — at least that was my experience.   

Compare Alaska's online information! 

Meanwhile, Cornell University's Waste Management Institute (now there is a college major that will get you hired) will give you a video on composting roadkill. Read more here. 

This method is intended for road departments and municipalities, but if you have a large back yard, plentiful wood chips, and a front loader, you are all set.

Composting provides an inexpensive alternative for disposal of dead animals in many cases. Composting animal carcasses is not new; chickens, pigs, calves, cows and even whales have been composted.

Passively aerated static pile composting in which piles are not turned and natural processes result in high temperatures is proving to be a viable method of managing carcasses. It is quick and simple, uses equipment and materials used in daily road maintenance operations and is cost effective. 
 
This method helps protect ground and surface water by keeping the carcasses out of contact with water. Composting also reduces pathogens, nuisance to neighbors and odors in properly managed piles.

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