Urban Scout: Rewilding Cascadia

Car culture signifies one of the most wasteful, violent and pollutive parts of civilization; from co2 emissions, fragmenting of habitat through road-building and poisoning of plants and water with toxic metals and the murdering of countless animals and insects. Dying by the wheels of an automobile has no humanity, no respect. Many animals experience a mortal wound from car accidents and die slow deaths in the gutter. I hate cars. I hate traffic. I hate this legacy of the last 100 years of car culture. I hate oil companies. I hate civilization. And I really fucking hate assholes like Tom Green who make a mockery of this tragedy (Poop on the end of a microphone? Funny. Humping the rotting corpse of a dead moose, who died a pointless death in the name of civilization’s progression, and in front of millions of people just for its mere shock value? Well… Not so funny).

I hate what roadkill symbolizes; a world moving too fast to even recognize the lives of those it destroys. Of course, roadkill only exists with car culture, with civilization. Without fuel, you don’t have cars. Without cars you have no road maintenance. Without road maintenance, roads quickly deteriorate. In time roadkill will not exist.

In rewilding often we use these cast off road carcasses as teaching tools. Hunting takes a lot more skill than scavenging. I have always seen the scavenging of roadkill for learning more about rewilding kind of like those people who donate their bodies to science. Only, those people had a choice. I can think of nothing more dishonorable than letting an animal rot in the gutter. In no way does it honor the life of the dead. I feel that picking up and learning from and finding uses for these animals honors their lives and gives them some semblance of a respectful death. Of course, I also say that if you pick up roadkill and use its parts for food and tools than you make an agreement with that species to dismantle car culture and learn to take their lives in honorable, more humane ways.

So now you feel ready to pick up your first roadkill, but you don’t know how to tell if it has the freshness you want. And believe me, you want it fresh. Of course, like any rewilding practice, many people share different opinions based on their own experiences and comfort zones. I have heard of people eating stinky, rotten green meat and not feeling ill. I have seen footage of hunter-gatherers chase vultures from carrion, roast it in the fire and eat it without a problem. Some people have a higher tolerance to bacteria than others. Especially those who grew up eating it in hunter-gatherer cultures. I didn’t, so I don’t. But I’ve also had people call me a coward… Like the time I refused to take a bite of the deer heart that my friend passed around the campfire.

…Back to ageing roadkill. I have three questions that I ask. 1) What does it look like? 2) What does it smell like? And 3) What does it feel like?

What does it look like?
The word roadkill will generally provoke the image of a flattened animal, guts splattered everywhere, crawling with maggots and tire tracks racing across its back. If you have to scrape it off the street with a spatula, you probably don’t want it. If it has a large rupture, you may find a use for the hide, but leave the meat for the crows & coyotes. If it crawls with maggots, turn around and slowly walk away… unless you feel ready to cook your first maggot stew (that will come later). Basically, you can generally “age” it by looking at it. If they eyes look moist and not dry, it probably died recently. If the fur looks nice and clean and fluffy, it probably died recently. If it looks wet and crusty and dirt has splashed up on it from many cars driving by, it probably died a while ago. If it looks mangy it might have had rabies or some other disease you will get too if you eat it. When you cut it open you’ll definitely want to check the organs for spots. Disease will generally show up as spots on the liver, but it can carry to other organs as well. If you don’t know how to identify the liver, I suggest buying a biology text or doing an internet search.

What does the fur smell like?
Does it smell like a wet dog or Penny Scout’s feet? If it doesn’t smell bad on the outside (aside from the stinking wet dog smell) skin it. When skinning it, what does the meat smell like? When I first started skinning animals I couldn’t stand the smell of even fresh meat. Eventually you learn to tell the stink of fresh meat from the stink of meat you don’t want to eat. Go with your gut. I mean, you know when it stinks from spoilage. You just know, like the difference between stinking wet dog smell and Penny Scout’s feet; you know which one will kill.

What does it feel like?
You will often notice the stiffness of an animal. When it first dies, its body will feel limp, floppy even and internally warm. Eventually rigor mortis will set in and it stiffens. A while after that, rigor mortis will go away and it will feel limp again. I generally don’t eat them if they have gone all the way through rigor, but I know people who will still eat the meat. You may even see fleas on it or ticks. Watch out for these bugs as they will want a new host and your body will make the perfect one. They also carry diseases such as lime disease and the boubonic plague. Still feel like proceeding? Still feel like proceeding? I will generally pick up a leaf and use it to pinch some hair and so I don’t have to touch it with my hand. If you tug the hair and it stays in firm you can at least tan the hide into leather.

Another element in safely scavenging roadkill involves how you process it. As with any kind of meat, don’t get shit on it. When you “free the anus,” do a damn good job. The impact of the car has so much force that sometimes it will make the animals guts explode, shooting bloody bile out of their mouth and bloody shit out of their asshole and sometimes this will spoil much of the meat inside. I can’t say that without tearing up. What a fucking terrible way to die. I fucking hate civilization so much. Take extra care when cutting around the butt and throat and make sure to keep all the meats clean.

You now have the basic gist. The rest will come with time and practice. Now get out there and start honoring the dead and feeding your family and grossing out your friends. And remember your promise to dismantle car culture.

For more information check out my blogs “Meeting My Meat” where I skin and butcher a roadkill squirrel and read about “How I Painlessly Lost My Roadkill Deer Virginity.”