Can You Legally Take Roadkill Home, Even on a Scooter, in New York State

We've all seen it. The guy rolling his scooter down Sunset Avenue in Utica, New York with a dead deer strapped to the back. Is that even legal?

Pictures of a man with a dead deer on his scooter flooded social media and quickly went viral, creating so many questions.

How

The first question is how? How does a guy in a scooter pick up a deer to carry it home? He had to have had some help.

I would've loved to hear how that conversation went. "Hey stranger, can you pick up that dead deer and strap it on the back of my scooter."

According to reports, the deer was recently hit and the driver didn't want it. So police offered the animals up to this guy passing by.

Road Legal?

Is it even legal to take an animal found on the side of the road home to eat?

Ironically in the state of New York, where there's a law for everything, there's nothing that says whether or not you can legally take and eat roadkill. A tag or permit is required though.

Big game, such as bear and deer may be taken with a tag written up by a Law Enforcement officer. This is usually done for someone that actually has the collision with the animal, but it could be provided to another individual if the driver from the accident doesn’t want the carcass.

Safe to Eat

Is the meat safe to eat? That depends.

A deer killed on the road is just as safe to eat as a deer hunted in the woods. However, Live Science says if you leave the deer sitting for too long, bacteria may start to grow. This can happen in as little as 10 minutes.

You should also not pull over to take meat from a deer that someone else had hit. There is no way to know how long it had been sitting out, and the meat could be contaminated.

Let's just hope it wasn't a case of Grandpa running over a reindeer. There will be a lot more questions from a lot more people all around the world.