Volunteers Turn Roadkill Into Charity

Shortly after sunrise Wednesday, two Spokane hunters were gutting a pair of white-tailed deer in a field northwest of Spokane.

Doubtless they got a few sour looks. The hunting seasons ended months ago.

But John Williamson and Bob Cole were on a mission to make something positive out of roadkill. They also had the blessing of state wildlife agents.

The two sportsmen are among a dozen Inland Northwest Wildlife Council members sickened by the sight of so many deer being wasted along roads during this wicked winter.

They approached the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department and then waded through a mound of paperwork to clear the project with the state and local agencies.

Without the necessary permits, collecting dead wildlife from along the road is illegal.

The sportsmen agreed to be on call. A wildlife officer or sheriff’s deputy who comes across a freshly road-killed deer will radio to a dispatcher, who calls the volunteers. In three weeks, the men have responded seven times to salvage meat for charity.

Wednesday, the call came at 7 a.m.

Cole and Williamson drove to Four Mound Road, where they tended to a buck and a doe, dead but still warm after being struck by a single vehicle.

“A Ford,” Cole said, describing all the pieces of glass and plastic on the road. “Or at least it used to be a Ford.

“We dragged the deer into a field and dressed them out. People probably don’t know the toll cars take on deer. The doe was pregnant with well-formed twins. That one vehicle got four deer.”

The sportsmen did the dirty work, then skinned the buck and doe and hauled them to the Union Gospel Mission. A retired butcher will carve the remains into nutrition for the needy.

“We’ve salvaged eight deer, amounting to about 500 pounds of usable meat for the mission,” Cole said.

Don’t worry. In a winter like this, there’s still more than enough roadkill to bloat every coyote, raven and magpie through spring.

Sprawling restrictions: Two decades ago, hunters thought it could happen only in the East.

But urban growth is spreading into traditional deer hunting grounds everywhere. Even sportsmen in Idaho are hunting deer with shotguns.

“The comments from homeowners are that bullets are zinging by,” said Evin Oneale of the Idaho Fish and Game Department. “The safety problem (in southwest Idaho) is getting progressively worse.”

A proposal before the Idaho Fish and Game Commission in Boise today would expand the ban on hunting with long-range, high-powered rifles. The restrictions are in place in portions of Canyon and Ada counties. The proposal would include certain areas near Weiser and Payette.

Deer hunters would be required to use short-range weapons such as archery gear, shotguns or muzzleloaders, which lose their lethal punch after a few hundred yards. A high-powered rifle bullet can travel more than a mile.

Easy contribution: Idaho has a remarkably easy way for people to donate to non-game wildlife programs. Simply check a box on the state income tax return and designate how much of the tax refund you’d like to contribute.

Yet the program netted only $44,000 last year - about half of what it raised 13 years ago.

If every Idaho taxpayer would donate a mere dollar for each member of the family, the annual fund would increase to $1.1 million.

Piling on: Last weekend’s snowfall was impressive, building on an already staggering snowpack.

Mount Spokane ski patrollers had to rope off areas under Chair 4 to prevent skiers from smacking their heads on the boots of skiers going up the lift.

Skiers are skating through walls of snow plowed for a path to the quad chair at Schweitzer, where surveyors measured 183 inches of snow at elevation 6,200 feet this week. That’s DOUBLE the snowpack at the same time last year.

Avalanche danger is extreme in many backcountry areas.

You can contact Rich Landers by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5508.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review