I don't know why this is affecting me so much

Kangaroos jump out in front of the lights of cars in Australia - we have hit one before now but when I suggested to DD and SIL that they take it home for dog meat they both looked ill.
Yet they buy kangaroo meat from the supermarket for the dogs .....

When I was younger, I would get really upset if we accidently hit a bird, a rabbit, or anything else, but I've become harder over time and nowadays when I pass a dead deer, my first thought is usually "I wonder how much damage that did to someone's car", followed quickly by "mmm, venison".
I've never gone as far as taking road kill home though - though never say never. Actually, I think that it's quite common around here to take these things home as dog food, unless that's just an excuse.

Regarding deer apparently if you hit and kill it you're breaking the law if you pick it up, but it's fine for the person behind you to take it!
Bizarre or what?

As a vegetarian for over 45 years who did enjoy the taste of meat, I have been thinking about this from a different viewpoint and asking myself whether I might eat road kill since the animal was killed by accident.

Still haven't come up with an answer, but it's testing me

A few years ago I fell off my bike because I wobbled onto the verge due to me looking at a dead fox cub on the other side of the road. As I was being loaded into the ambulance with a leg broken in 3 places (am I the only person to break a leg falling off a bike at a standstill?) a car pulled up and threw the dead fox into the boot. Why on earth did he not do that 20mins earlier !!!

Many years ago, when DH was driving a lorry for an abattoir, he saw a Roe Deer killed by a car. He stopped his lorry, hung the carcase in the back and brought it home and butchered it for the freezer.

He once brought home a pheasant that he had hit himself. I was trying to find somewhere to put it where the cats wouldn't find it so I left it in the bath. Unfortunately I forgot to tell DD when she arrived home from university and dashed into the bathroom. But I don't think the scream woke the whole road

Yuck......
I've known people to pick up apparently fresh pheasants but I imagine they'd be smashed up. Pheasants are usually 'hung' until high putrefaction when shot anyway
Landlord when farming would bestow a brace on us peasant tenant farmers at Christmas. I could cope with skinning fresh rabbits but 'high' pheasants.......

It was Janet Street-Porter who mentioned that she does that when she was on Masterchef
You don't know how long it has been there

It was a few weeks ago rosequartz, blasted bird definitely flew away, as witnessed by a van driver who stopped to see if I was ok!

Roadkill is upsetting, when farming we reported dead badgers because the then Min of Ag tested them for TB, but at less foxes and birds get fed from it. Luckily I rarely see a dead deer although plenty of Roe and Muntjac around.

Can't quite understand people picking up roadkill to eat.....

I was thinking of this thread the other day as we drove southwards out of the forested area on the A11. We passed a deer, a badger, a fox, a squirrel, a hare, loads of pheasants and several rabbits. The carrion crow are going to have a wonderful time. However as DBH was driving I was able to observe two herds of deer and a couple of hares.

I didn't like to mention this earlier, but around here people do remove the deer. As they are too big to get into the cars, they always leave the head behind. I have never seen this elsewhere in the UK.

I wonder if that was the one I saw by the side of the road yesterday loopylou.

I was going to stop and pick it up but then thought that 'I am not Janet Street-Porter, I can't be bothered to start plucking it, and all the rest of the preparation, yuck'.

A pheasant flew out of a hedge and I hit it.
Result? £270 bill for damage to car, pheasant flew away.......

Yes whitewave; and his wife was a vegetarian if I remember right....

Well Pheasant's are just darn stupid. I have never seen another animal with such little road sense. I wonder if they have poor sight or something.

Wasn't there someone in Cornwall near Bodmin Moor I think who used to live on road kill?

Our LA asks people to report dead animals on the roadsides so they can collect them.

It's largely badgers around here, our soft sandy soil is ideal for building their ?Holts. The bunnies and hedgehogs usually get picked at by the crows and magpies and there is very little trace of them left within a few hours.

I feel very sad for animals that have been killed on the road, too (apart from a pheasant that flew into our car a few years ago - I was in tears about the poor bird until we saw the hundreds of pounds-worth of damage it had caused!)
Today, on the way home from a short break away, I saw a badger on the grass verge, and to see such a beautiful (or any other) animal wiped out - hopefully very quickly, is horrid. We can only hope that these poor animals died straight away.
Last night I was watching the local news in our hotel room, and it was reported that a tethered horse had been left to die on a piece of ground in the middle of a housing estate. (I can't remember the name of the place). The complaint was that people were having to walk past the corpse of the poor thing as they were taking their children to school. Why, why, why did they not report the creature to the RSPCA before it collapsed and died? One elderly lady was upset, saying 'They rely on us, don't they...it's just so sad'.
phoenix, there's nothing wrong with feeling as you do, just now. It'll pass. In the meantime, you know where we are.

That's a cop out though isn't it Jaxie? Other people have to kill those animals so you can enjoy your meat.

Sorry you're feeling so sad at the moment phoenix. I'm sure that heightens emotions - you need some TLC. Hope Mr phoenix is around to provide some.

Perhaps when we see dead animals it reminds us of our own mortality. The only consolation is that the animal will no longer suffer anguish or pain. Until I kept a cat I had little respect for the natural world; now I have a nervous breakdown if I see a lorry crammed with sheep or cattle on its way to the abattoir. If I had to kill animals for food I should have to go vegetarian -unless my grandchildren were starving - may be then I could do it.

Durhamjen, thanks for the fix my street tip, have just used it to report street lamps out on a dark local footpath which would have been difficult to describe without the map.

Hope you feel better soon Phoenix, I feel the same when seeing a dead animal which appears uninjured.

I have been affected recently by the news that all the deer are going to be shot in the woodland where I regularly walk. I know I shouldn't, but I have been feeding the muntjac and roe and love watching them. I even have names for them. To my knowledge there are only 7 animals in total in the large area I visit, and would have hoped that it could accommodate this small number without too much damage to this neglected wood.

Yes DJen, that fixmy street site is very useful.

Very sad phoenix I think it's the position that does it. I was reduced to tears last year when one of the cats brought in a baby squirrel. I had it curled up in my hand as if it might have woken up at any moment and run off.

There is a website called www.fixmystreet.com which links directly to the council. You can find out if anyone else has reported the incident. Also, fixmystreet will send your report to whoever needs to know if it is someone other than the council.
They have a map on the site, which you can look at to see where the problems are and whether anything has been done about it. You just need to put in your postcode.

Oh yes. We've had a deer dent.