Ask a conservation officer

[Lee Borgersen]

     Ask a conservation officer:


                   Deer disposal is illegal on public land

 Nov 23, 2014

Q: Lately I’ve seen a lot of deer carcasses in ditches and at the edge of the woods. Is this an OK way to dispose of bones and parts after butchering? Won’t the birds clean everything up?


 
A: I’ll answer this with a very emphatic “No!” A hunter shows very lazy and irresponsible — and illegal — behavior when he or she dumps the leftover carcasses and deer parts in a ditch, roadside, parking lot or other unauthorized place. Laws regarding litter specifically address the dumping of animal parts, and hunters doing this open themselves to civil or criminal penalties.

While birds and scavengers do pick at these leavings, they stop short of cleaning up the entire pile. In residential areas, it is not uncommon for a dog to find a tasty morsel in these illegally dumped piles and present it to an unhappy owner.

This behavior gives a very poor image of hunters to the non-hunting and anti-hunting public. Check with your contract trash hauler to see if the hauler accepts animal leftovers. Otherwise, they need to be buried or placed on private land with the permission of the owner. Placing them anywhere in a road right-of-way or on public land is a criminal litter violation.

[Lee Borgersen]

                        ....... Related Report

CO Matt Miller (Marine Unit) checked a few deer hunters on the final weekend of a very slow season. One hunter called for a possession tag for the rack and skull of a deer he had been seeing during season. Before the hunter could legally take the deer, he overheard a pack of wolves take down the nice buck. A check of the area a few hours later revealed no remnants of the 11-pointer other than a backbone, ribcage, skull, and a leg. Multiple dumping sites have been discovered where lazy hunters dumped carcasses in the ditch, some very close to houses. This gives a bad image to all hunters. Enforcement action taken for ATV and litter violations.