Roadkill

[Bears Discover Fire]

I hit a wild turkey in Santa Barbara County.

I was driving very slowly down a country road when this big wild tom turkey came flapping and running in front of my car. I slammed on the brakes, and he just sorta bounced off my bumper, no harm no foul. The big bird sprang back up, gobbled at me in indignation, and continued wobbling across the road, completely uninjured .

Aside from the occasional bird and very large insects splattering my windshield, I haven't been the cause of any more roadkill.

My parents hit doe once. That was traumatic. They swerved to miss her and ended up sideswiping her instead. They looked back and couldn't see her, so they thought it was just a graze and she had bounded off to safety. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that poor doe died a painful, prolonged death. Our neighbors were driving the same road an hour later and found the deer still spasming in a depression by the road (she fell in there when she was hit so my parents couldn't see her from their mirrors), so the husband pulled out the shotgun he kept in the car and ended her pain. When my parents got home there was a large scrape down the passenger side of the car and fur and blood stuck in the door jambs, and then they knew that the doe had been seriously hurt.

The very next weekend, in the same car, a small terrier darted out from under a a tractor that was parked on a rural road and went right under our wheels. We had no time to hit the brakes, swerve, or anything. My mom and I bawled all the way home, while my dad drove on with a clenched jaw and white knuckles.

 

[CookieMonster]

I have hit sunk (now I know what the wobby white line in the road is) and a kittie. Luckily thats it, but I have seen deer, sunks, cats, raccoons, squirrels, birds, snakes, even a cow.

Thats what living in the boondocks will do to ya.

 

[Pegaritaville]

Most of the roadkill around here seems to consist of coons, squirrels, skunks, bunnies, birds and deer. Our county used to be pretty good at scraping it off the roads, but due to budget cuts, they don't make the rounds as often as they used to. They'll still move the deer off the roads fairly quickly, but now they just toss it to the side for a later pickup.

I've hit 5 deer (one came through my windshield- I was pinned until help arrived), but I can't even count the number of other critters I've hit. Most of my driving is done in rural areas, so flattening an animal is a fairly common occurrence. The oddest thing I've hit is a bald eagle. Since they were protected at the time, I wasn't sure what to do (I bolted).