local wildlife/roadkill

[Leslie]

*backs slowly out of thread*

 

[Luis G]

A nutria is some sort of chipmunk, in my dictionary it appears as otter.

 

[paul_valaru]

Do you age moose like beef... or do you cook it asap. Some meats, like bear, go sour really quick because the fat does some kind of freaky cascade metabolic breakdown.

I would probably try and make 1000lbs of moose jerky. Is such a thing available in the stores?

you dress it and age it, like any game meat

bear tastes really bad, most carnivours have that bad taste, and dthe meat rots quicker

 

[Rose]

We have lots of brown squirrels here. Spring and autumn is like driving through squirrel death row on the way to work.

Others include the stray cat/dog, skunk, and other small creatures. Mostly brown squirrels, though.

 

[AlphaTroll]

We do get the assortment of pets, but in some areas it'd be donkies, guinneafowl etc.

Though I do think the most 'animals' killed are pedestrians - SA must be one of the only (if not the only) country with signs on the highway that warns you to watch out for pedestrians..........usually within 100m of a bridge specifically built for pedestrians to cross

 

[unclehobart]

A nutria is some sort of chipmunk, in my dictionary it appears as otter.

Big friggin water rat from what I can see. Adults are 12-17 inches in length.

 

[Dave]

the majority of roadkill around here are grey squirrels, skunks, house pets and rabbits. i see a fair number of squashed birds too, but its tough to id them. they kinda explode on impact.

 

[PT]

Mostly Possum up here, but you get just a few miles south of here and you start finding Armidillos, natures little speed bump.

 

[Professur]

Nailing a skunk is awful. The car stinks for weeks after.

 

[Dave]

i know. i hit one when it was about 30 F outside. drove around with the windows down for about 3 hours trying to air out the stink. damn near had frostbite.

 

[PT]

Oh yeah, and the highway crews around here don't touch em either, just let them rot where they get hit. Most of the others either the highway crews or the coyotes get em quick enough, but the skunks just hang around for a week or two.

Interesting tidbit about coyotes. Did you know that farmers hang a dead coyote from a tree in order to keep other coyotes from coming around? It really works, coyotes don't like the smell of coyotes rotting, so if you hang a dead one from a tree or somewhere it can just rot slowly, the other coyotes won't come around.

 

[paul_valaru]

Oh yeah, and the highway crews around here don't touch em either, just let them rot where they get hit. Most of the others either the highway crews or the coyotes get em quick enough, but the skunks just hang around for a week or two.

Interesting tidbit about coyotes. Did you know that farmers hang a dead coyote from a tree in order to keep other coyotes from coming around? It really works, coyotes don't like the smell of coyotes rotting, so if you hang a dead one from a tree or somewhere it can just rot slowly, the other coyotes won't come around.

how big is a coyote

 

[Dave]

the ones around here are about 50 lbs or so. about the size of a medium dog.

 

[Professur]

About the size of a german shepard. We get a few out by where I live. I almost picked one up as a stray, until i got a better look at it. Whoops.

 

[paul_valaru]

About the size of a german shepard. We get a few out by where I live. I almost picked one up as a stray, until i got a better look at it. Whoops.

they had some out in the west island, and some guy at work thought they wehere the size of a fox

 

[PT]

Yeah, medium size dog, usually very timid animals if alone, can be vicious if in a pack or if you corner them.

 

[Gonz]

Yea, what they said.


The bestestest sign I've even seen, you know the Deer X-ing type of signs, well, up in Maine, they have no use for the silly deer crossing signs, they have


"Watch for MOOSE in roadways"

Even my truck begins looking when that sign appears.

 

[Sharky]

Nutria are large herbivorous rodents. Their meat is edible.

http://www.nutria.com/site.php

Wombats are small bear-like marsupials found in Australia. I don't know what those critters are that I like to call "wombats". They are probably some kind of groundhogs.

Wombat:

 

[Squiggy]

We get the usual mix of squirrel, rabbit, deer, pets, birds, ossum, coon, *gasp* frog...etc.

The one that upsets me is that one day in spring when all the box turtles make their breeding migration to the water...Our hiways become littered with them...Its sad. They are fading in numbers quickly...

 

[Professur]

Dinner's ready