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Road Kill with a " shooter" size rack on I 71 mile post 61-62

bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
If they pay ODOT to pick up dead deer, I'd say the DNR is not driving around cutting heads off road kill and leaving the body. They're either taking the whole thing or having ODOT reserve what they pick up so the DNR can test. Rednecks like me who carry a saw for just an occasion can be blamed for headless road kill. Not that I'd do such a thing...
 

moundhill

Senior Member
Supporting Member
5,327
103
Hebbardsville..
If they pay ODOT to pick up dead deer, I'd say the DNR is not driving around cutting heads off road kill and leaving the body. They're either taking the whole thing or having ODOT reserve what they pick up so the DNR can test. Rednecks like me who carry a saw for just an occasion can be blamed for headless road kill. Not that I'd do such a thing...
They do just that though. We have a truck running every day this time of year, to just drive around and pick up dead deer. The Dnr will stop, but the head off and carry on.
 

bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
They do just that though. We have a truck running every day this time of year, to just drive around and pick up dead deer. The Dnr will stop, but the head off and carry on.
Shameful. Figured they'd have been instructed to take the whole thing. Course then you ODOT guys would file a grievance because they took your work. lmao
 

giles

Cull buck specialist
Supporting Member
I seen a n email from Tonk on this subject that said something along the lines of not having the resources to take the entire deer carcass. I'll see if I can dig it up, I've got a few minutes waiting on pancakes...
 

giles

Cull buck specialist
Supporting Member
Here it is…from November 5, 2015

I emailed Mike Tonkovich hoping for some clarification, well I got it, here it is in it's entirety for all to read.




Good Morning Ron –



My guess is that your email is in response to a thread on the Dumbassville regarding “headless deer.” This thread was brought to my attention last evening. Given the misinformation in the thread, I’m glad you took this opportunity to reach out to us for clarification. First and foremost, the quote from Mr. David Kohler is inaccurate. Perhaps if you had a source for this information, we could get things cleared up. Second, YES we are in fact collecting road-killed deer as part of our statewide CWD surveillance program. We have been collecting road-killed deer for a decade now and have been monitoring Ohio’s wild herd for CWD since 2002. In addition to the road-killed deer, we are also collecting hunter-harvested deer, suspect animals (those behaving abnormally or appear sick), and samples from taxidermists in several eastern Ohio locations. We are collecting only the head and later are pulling tissue samples for testing. Our staff is advised to make every effort to remove the deer from plain view after removing the head. We recognize that a headless deer is not a pleasant site. However, there are occasions where moving a deer is not practical for safety reasons. Moreover, most of the headless deer are the work of folks who are illegally collecting the antlers.In a good year, we’ll collect 800 road-killed deer. This year, roughly 20,000 deer will be hit on the road. Many of those will be bucks and most will lose their heads before we even have a chance to get to them.



We are leaving the deer where the sample is collected for two reasons. First, we have no way of moving the deer. We do not have the staff or the equipment to load these deer. Second, and most importantly, if that deer is positive for CWD and we drag it half-way across the county to dispose of it, we’re potentially contaminating everything along the way that comes into contact with the blood and body fluids. In my opinion, we’re minimizing our potential losses by leaving the deer where it fell. Yes, a positive deer would contaminate the site, but I suppose its best to contain it to a single site than run the risk of contaminating multiple sites during the move.



I hope this helps to clear up some of the confusion. If I’ve left anything unanswered, feel free to drop me a note. And again, if you have a source for the inaccurate statement attributed to Mr. Kohler, please share that with me and we’ll get that cleared up too! Finally, I’ve provided a summary of our CWD surveillance efforts in the table below.



Best,



Mike Tonkovich



Michael J. Tonkovich, Ph.D.

Deer Program Administrator

ODNR, Division of Wildlife

360 E. State St.

Athens, OH 45701

v(740)589.9922 f(740)589.9925
 
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Diane

*Supporting Member*
4,715
66
Newark
I'll be damned. Never knew they took heads, always figured it was rednecks.

Hope those pancakes are chocolate chip. Now I might have to make some!
 

giles

Cull buck specialist
Supporting Member
I'll be damned. Never knew they took heads, always figured it was rednecks.

Hope those pancakes are chocolate chip. Now I might have to make some!

Just regular.

Also to add a little bit about CWD testing, it doesn't show up in young deer. So they don't test fawns, which I believe is what is normally seen on roadsides. When we do drive by a bigger bodied deer and see the head missing, we assume it was a buck. His email is also misleading on a few accounts….but I'll leave that alone for now.
 

Lundy

Member
1,307
127
Moreover, most of the headless deer are the work of folks who are illegally collecting the antlers.In a good year, we’ll collect 800 road-killed deer. This year, roughly 20,000 deer will be hit on the road. Many of those will be bucks and most will lose their heads before we even have a chance to get to them.
 

giles

Cull buck specialist
Supporting Member
Moreover, most of the headless deer are the work of folks who are illegally collecting the antlers.In a good year, we’ll collect 800 road-killed deer. This year, roughly 20,000 deer will be hit on the road. Many of those will be bucks and most will lose their heads before we even have a chance to get to them.

What is your point? I didn't say people didn't do it. We all know it happens, I was just adding some info. 800 headless deer is still a high number. 20,000 is a really high number, but this number doesn't say how many died on the road. The idea of "many of those will be bucks" well no shit, you killed all the doe, remember?!

Are you just stirring my pot?! Because it's working...
 

Lundy

Member
1,307
127
Joel and Bigslam51 said they see a dead deer it is normally headless deer or does, same as I witness. You replied that the ODNR is removing heads. My only response was only that the majority of headless dear are not from ODNR testing, that's all, nothing more. If your pot feels stirred by that you need a bigger pot
 

yotehunter

Member
1,527
36
spencerville oh
Giles is right odnr does this. I work for odot don't shoot me for that it pays the bills lol. Any how one of our crew was picking up road kills and Dnr was doing just that. Cutting a head off a 130 inch buck and it was going to be tested cwd.
 
Catching up on this thread, very interesting that they're doing some of the head chopping. Quite a few headless along the way from Athens up to Columbus on 33. Also several with heads still on which were only antlerless. So that leads you to wonder, are the headless ONLY bucks then (redneck cutting or ODNR)? Makes me wonder if they are looking at bucks primarily and not does or if some might have been does. Just seeing only antlerless with heads on is why I wonder.
 

moundhill

Senior Member
Supporting Member
5,327
103
Hebbardsville..
I've picked up several does with their heads cut off. I'd say it's a safe bet that if there's a buck dead on the highway, it's getting cut off by either a redneck or dnr. I hate to pick up the ones that have a sack the size of my a softball haha. Makes me wonder how big the buck was.