When you live in outdoorsman country, there are bound to be times when your vehicle and wildlife collide. Most animals are confused by our seventy-mile-per-hour steel missiles, blinded by the headlights, and startled by the onrushing noise. It’s no wonder they don’t know which way to run, so it’s inevitable that critters sometimes end up sliced and diced on the front grills of our rigs. I’m horrified when this happens, but for the outdoorsman, it’s like a super fun episode of Chopped: Roadkill Surprise. Just like the regular show, you never know what ingredients you’re going to be handed.
A few years ago, the outdoorsman and I were setting up a shuttle for a day on the river. Which means it was early morning—the sun wasn’t above the horizon yet—and I was driving our old truck to leave it at the take-out spot, while the outdoorsman was driving a few hundred yards behind me in his new rig. I was merrily zipping along, slugging coffee, when a gargantuan buck mule deer sprinted out of the sagebrush onto the highway, and before I could swerve or brake, he ran straight into my driver’s-side door. That’s right—the deer hit me, not the other way around. I immediately pulled over to the shoulder, upset and a bit frantic because I was afraid that the poor guy was still alive and suffering. I’ll admit that I watched Bambi a lot when I was a little girl. I have a soft spot for beautiful deer.
The outdoorsman rolls up behind me and we both get out to look for the poor buck in the dark. I’m just praying that he’s not suffering. By the light from the outdoorsman’s truck, I notice that there is a big, furry ear stuck in my now-dangling side mirror. Just the ear. Wait, there’s also a leg tangled in my running board. I feel sick. Gag! Poor, poor little animal. Then the outdoorsman spots the bulk of the buck’s body in the ditch, so we run over to ensure that he is not still alive and suffering. He most definitely is not alive. His body is headless, and it’s a mess. It looks like what you’d get if you fed a deer into a wood chipper. I feel even more sick than I did at first. And really sad. Poor guy!
Meanwhile, the outdoorsman is twenty yards away, whooping and hyperventilating over the size of the antlers on what remains of the buck’s head. He’s already planning how to display this massive rack at home. And savoring tonight’s venison chili dinner.
I have a cousin who has the worst luck with his truck and wildlife. He runs into the craziest assortment of critters. To date, he has smoked so many skunks that his best hunting dog will no longer go anywhere near the truck because of the stink. You cannot get into that rig without your nose burning and your eyes watering up. But skunks are common. My cousin has also run over a black bear, a mountain lion, and a mountain goat. Think about it—when’s the last time you had to swerve to avoid a mountain goat on your morning commute? Of course, he’s also hit deer. A lot of deer. So many deer that the local farmers often call to invite him over for pie and coffee, secretly hoping that, on his way over, he’ll cull a few of the whitetail that eat all the grain in their fields. Of course, being an outdoorsman himself, my cousin doesn’t feel bad for the poor little furballs he’s creamed. No, he thinks it’s a riot. He and his buddies get together and laugh about all of the unfortunate critters that have crossed his path.
In contrast, when you see a dead animal on the roadside, what do you think? “Awwww, poor little thing?” I strongly suspect that is what crosses most women’s minds. Another happy furball reduced to magpie food. So sad.
Well, you know your man is a real outdoorsman when every dead critter is greeted with shouts of glee like wrapped presents on Christmas morning. Seriously, some poor smashed rabbit becomes the best roadside attraction ever, and you have to stop, get out of the truck, and inspect the carcass like it’s the Holy Grail.
The first time I experienced this, I thought my camo guy has lost his mind. We were cruising along a gravel backroad through a big valley filled with sagebrush. The camo guy was scouting for deer. I was minding my own business (truth be told, I was focused on keeping breakfast down as we bounced and skidded through potholes and washboards from Hell, and trying not to pee my pants from too much coffee, because, of course, pee breaks are not allowed while scouting), when I happened to spot a wad of gray fur just off the edge of the road. I should’ve known better, but my mouth was in gear before my brain engaged. “Awwww, poor little guy,” I said.
The truck stopped so quickly that my forehead nearly bounced off the dashboard, and the only thing that saved me from severe whiplash was the camo guy’s flyfishing float tube sailing from the backseat and hitting me in the back of the head, cushioning the rebound. “What is it? Where?” shouted the camo guy. I started to reply, but he was already out the door and running around the front of the truck, scanning for the dead animal he knows must be near.
Have you ever had a moment when time slows and your vision clears, allowing you to see your man as he really and truly is? A moment so calm, so distilled, that it seems you’re floating above him and his very soul is revealed? And did you like what you saw, or—be honest now—did it make you squirm, even just a little?
I rolled my window down and said, “It looks like a badger,” but the camo guy didn’t hear me. He was alternately crouching down over the carcass, then jumping three feet in the air, arms flapping, knees pumping, his baseball cap flying off, and chattering and whooping all the while. He bent over the carcass, scratching his head, lifted one of the badger’s paws, then dropped it and jumped around some more, talking to himself in excited squeaks. Ladies, I have to tell you, it reminded me of being at the zoo, watching feeding time at the monkey house.
I climbed out of the truck and stood on the edge of the road, looking down at the badger. I admit, the thick fur with bands of silver, black, and a rusty tan was beautiful. But he’d clearly been there a while, and I could just imagine what was crawling around on—and under—his skin. Plus, badgers have musk glands. The smell is potent, not as bad as a skunk, but not something you want tickling your nostrils. Unless you’re a camo guy. If my guy’s reaction is anything to go by, dead badger musk ought to be bottled as a perfume, an aphrodisiac, the aroma of love. But I’m not going anywhere near anything that smells like a bloated badger with ruptured musk glands. So I stayed up on the road while my camo guy all but rolled in that carcass. We were there for another half hour. Camo guy and badger were on a first-name basis by the time we finally drove away. I had to threaten no nookie for a month, or he would’ve had that badger hitchhiking in the back seat.
If that’s standard practice for a dead badger, you can imagine what happens when the roadkill is any sort of deer or elk, or anything with antlers. Oh my God. You might as well set out the lounge chair and pour yourself a nice, tall iced tea. The camo guy will measure the antlers six ways from Sunday, inspect the critter’s teeth, and then plot and scheme how to come back after dark to saw off the “horns” before someone else takes them. It’s like a scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, only creepier.
Look, I understand that camo guys love their wild animals, and that they’re accustomed to hanging around dead critters—having their pictures taken with the big bull elk they just bagged, holding up a string of lunker trout, or posing their latest prize from the taxidermist. But I still say there’s something strongly weird about such a fascination with roadkill. Sure, my gal friends notice it when they pass a big red stain on the highway and a deer carcass off in the ditch. They might even comment—“Awwww, poor little guy”—or think a little prayer for poor Bambi. That seems normal to me. But I don’t know what to call it when the truck screeches to a stop and the camo guy is out fondling a dead porcupine before you can even snap your neck back into place. And then you see him in the rear view mirror, holding a hunk of fur, frantically waving at you and hollering, “Honey! Come here! You gotta see this!”
You may as well take your snapped neck right on out there because the camo guy cannot contain his excitement—the sooner you go view the carcass and praise your man’s exquisite taste in corpses, the sooner you can get back in the truck and move on down the road. Not that it will happen as quickly as you might hope. The camo guy has to play with the dead thing until he’s covered in fur and the dead thing’s odor. Be warned: he may try to model the carcass as a hat or earmuffs. Let’s hope it doesn’t go further than that.
Does all this behavior strike you as bizarre? I mean, off-the-charts weird? I tell you, it makes me wonder, and frankly, I’m a little worried. If this is how my camo guy behaves around dead bodies, I hope to God that I outlive him. Dying first is not an option. I can just picture it: a bad accident, my mangled corpse lying there on the ground, and the camo guy jumping around, playing with my hair, and saying things like, “Rest in peace, good ol’ Kristen, Queen of the Camo. Hey boys, look at that rack! It’s a beauty!”
Really, I’d rather not think about that. Besides, there are more pressing concerns here among the living. As you may have heard, my home state, Montana, has a lot of deer, elk, and other critters. I’m talking millions of the damn things, breeding like rabbits, and they’re everywhere. The tourism folks know that people come from all over to see our wildlife, so they pay these animals to stand along the roads and pose for photographs. That’s all fine and dandy until one of the critters decides to cross the road to sample the salad in the meadow on the other side. Well, as soon as one crosses over, the rest all follow. Bam! All it takes is one car to create carnage.
This is a bigger problem than it might seem. According to the state department of transportation, in one year, Montana motorists hit 4,754 whitetail deer, 1,977 mule deer, 220 elk, 72 pronghorn, and 28 moose. We also hit 39 black bears, 5 grizzly bears, 6 mountain lions, 15 bighorn sheep, an “uncertain number” of wolves (huh? are dead wolves averse to addition?), and too many birds of prey and unidentified little fur balls to count. And those are just the ones that were reported. This explains why these animals are so hard to find come hunting season.
This also explains why the ravens, magpies, and coyotes in Montana look so well fed. In the old days, roadkill was left in the barrow pit for the scavengers. But that often led to more critters getting hit as they came to feed. So then it was decided that roadkill should be removed: if you hit a deer or elk, say, you were supposed to call the highway patrol, and then they’d call the road maintenance guys to come clean up the mess. These are the same guys who paint the white lines, fix broken guardrails, and patch potholes. Except now they’re scooping up 7,116 roadkills a year—that’s 27 carcasses every day (not counting weekends . . . boy howdy, do these guys earn their weekends). Which explains why there are so many potholes.
So now I’m going to let you in on a secret, but you have to promise, under oath, not to tell your man, or any man. Because if this secret gets out, you’ll never look at a steak dinner the same way, you’ll never again feel safe biting into that big, juicy cheeseburger. You see, someone grasped the scope of the roadkill problem, considered how much meat was going to waste, and proposed a solution. And so the dutiful lawmakers of this fine state, in their infinite wisdom, recently passed a law allowing citizens to pick up roadkill and take it home.
You read that right. In Montana, if you spot something dead on the side of the road, you can pick it up, put it in the back seat of your car, and take it home.* You can stock your fridge with roadkill. And cook it. And eat it.
But let’s not think about that.
I’d rather focus on other worries. Like, what’s to stop people who’ll weld a big, fat grill guard on their pickup truck and go “hunt” deer? “Yeehaw Delbert, let’s go four-wheelin’ and thump us a big buck!” It’s bad enough that we have to keep our eyes peeled for critters crossing the road, especially at night, but now we have to dodge oncoming heat-seeking Ford and Chevy death-missiles, too. Hell, they’ll probably paint their trucks in camo patterns to fool the deer and add side-mounted spar-arms to conk any deer that escape a straight head-on.
Look, I think it is wonderful that these animals can now be used as food in a world where people go to bed hungry. But does it have to land on my table? How about we let Fish & Wildlife pick up the carcass and donate it to a food bank? If the meat’s too far gone, maybe sell it to a dog food company?
Remember: you have been warned. Do not tell your man roadkill is fair game. And unless you enjoy arriving late all the time, don’t say anything when you pass a tuft of fur off in the weeds or a streak on the asphalt leading to a hoof just over the white line. Especially if you see antlers. Lord knows you don’t want to be eating steak that’s been “grilled” twice—once on the road and once on the barbecue. And the last thing you need is home décor designed around a wall mount of a buck with only one antler, the jaw hanging sideways, and a look of mortal terror in its eyes. Talk about your deer in the headlights….
*The fine print: as always, some restrictions apply. Under Montana law, only deer, elk, pronghorn, and moose roadkill can be harvested, and you have to get a permit from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. No, it’s not a “hunting license.” You get the permit after you’ve hit or found the poor animal. And processing roadkill for human consumption is not without risks. According to the experts, only fresh kills should be taken, and you should remove the guts within half an hour. In warm weather, you have four hours or less to salvage and refrigerate the meat. Also, meat subjected to blunt force trauma is not “nicely tenderized” — it’s often inedible. Before even thinking about harvesting roadkill, contact Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks for the details.
Excerpted from the book Confessions of a Camo Queen: Living with an Outdoorsman, available from Farcountry Press.
