After a brief exchange with Foreman, he explained that he had opened his blinds to see the snow outside in the morning and noticed a deer had expired underneath the hedges between his house and his neighbors. Knowing the area, and that it was a nice buck, I wanted to see it for myself. I'd been curious about the roadkill salvage permit process. I had also seen a nice buck in the area surrounding Foreman's address a month or so prior, and was curious if was the same deer. I rang the doorbell, and Foreman was kind enough to walk around to the side of his house and show me where the deer had died. Sure enough, it was the same buck I'd seen before driving through that part of town. I was surprised he made it that far.
"We don't normally open those blinds, otherwise I wouldn't have noticed him," he said. "The landscapers were here three days ago to trim the hedges, so he's been there for a couple days, tops." Not knowing the time of death is a bit of a gamble, but how many big game hunters have gone a day or two looking for a wounded animal and still find it in time to salvage the meat? The past few days had been freezing weather, so that was comforting. Still, I was skeptical.
I began my own amateur forensics investigation. Judging from the evidence in the immediate area, the deer had come about fifty yards from the road, jumped down from a concrete wall, and bedded down in Foreman's hedges to lay himself to rest. I noticed some droppings roughly 8 feet from the deer that appeared to have been there at least through the evening's rainstorm because there was a leaf over it, rather than under it. I felt the deer's muscle tissue, (backstraps first of course!) and it was cold, but firm, not stiff. The front left foot was swollen, and the hoof appeared to be slightly damaged. Upon closer examination of the hoof, it came right off it's foot. I checked the range of movement of the deer's extremities. The neck was very loose, no different than a fresh, big game kill. The front legs both flexed at the joint fairly easily, but the shoulder appeared to be dislodged from it's socket. Upon moving that shoulder, there was a gurgling noise in the lungs. The hind legs were stiff as a board. The side facing up was fairly dry and appeared to be in good shape. The hair underneath it was slightly matted down, but I attributed that to the storm as well.
On the fence about my decision, I called my regional ODFW office and spoke with Asst. District Biologist Anne Mary Myers for advice and a second opinion. Myers explained that if the deer had been there a while, the hair would fall out easily. "What can you tell me about the conditions of the eyes?" she asked. I told her the eyes were partly cloudy, but you could still clearly see the definition between the pupil and the iris. Myers asked if the eye was still wet and slimy. Given there was a rainstorm the night before that went through morning, it had been fair weather all afternoon and the top half of the deer was dry. The eyes were still moist to the touch, likely not due to the previous rain. "Those are good indicators, but you really just need to cut open a sample of the meat and see if there's a sour smell or discoloration."
By then, I felt obligated to do Foreman the favor of removing the deer from his property and honoring the life of the same buck I'd seen strutting down the sidewalk with a couple does only a few weeks before. It was worth the effort of due diligence to see if it was salvageable. Worst case scenario, I did the guy a favor and now have a deer to dispose of properly. At home, I took a knife to the deer's front left leg, genuinely curious about the dislocated shoulder. The meat appeared to have good color. Some of the veins were filled with coagulated blood, but overall, the meat was in great shape with no unusual odors. I noticed that the chest cavity was filled with blood. I had no intentions of gutting it, so everything stayed nice and neat. I couldn't have asked for a better situation. Neither the shoulder nor the ribs were broken, so it almost appeared as if the sheer impact of being hit had ruptured it's lungs and caused some internal bleeding, but everything was contained. With no bullet wounds, it was the cleanest deer I've ever processed. Not only that, but it was the day before trash day. After removing the backstraps and quartering the rest, I put the remains of the deer in a yard waste bag and put in the rolling cart at the curb for Republic Services.
With the meat hanging in a shed out back, I turned the head with antlers intact in to my regional ODFW office (required by law for either sex) and got a chance to speak with Richard Green, a state wildlife biologist with the health and population lab. You know those little envelopes you put your deer teeth in to mail them in for research purposes? Well, those self-addressed, no postage necessary envelopes come directly to his office. Green then takes a cross-section of those samples to record the deer's age. "It's just like looking at the rings on a tree," says Green. His office in Adair Village, which just happens to be minutes from my house, receives all the samples statewide. Between hunter submissions, roadkill, and poached animals recovered by OSP, his office submits ten thousand teeth for age analysis per year to a lab that contracts it's services to multiple states. Green says the waiting time for results usually takes about 8 months. "We notify hunters of their kill's age with a postcard in the mail." I made a special request for the same postcard to notify me of the age of my salvaged buck. Green said nobody had asked him to do that before, but would oblige. Along with testing for age, the head is also used to track the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease.
The permitting process was easy. You can fill out the forms online from the MyODFW website, or just do the paperwork at the nearest regional office when you turn in the head within 5 business days of recovering the salvaged animal. You submit one form, and fill out the tag paperwork on the spot, then keep the tag for as long as you store the meat. Green says that over 1,500 permits were issued in 2019 after the new legislation went into effect in January. "How many permits can you issue to one person for this?" I asked. "There's no limit, but if you show up every day with a new dent in your bumper, you're probably going to be investigated."
This article was published in the March 2020 issue of Northwest Sportsman Magazine
