ME woman demands to be paid for road-killed moose

[spectr17]

December 2, 2002

Driver demands cash for moose her car killed

Associated Press

ACTON — A woman whose car struck and killed a moose says she wants to be paid for the meat she asserts is legally hers but was given away by police after the accident.

"I think the deputy thought he was doing me a favor," said Lisa Pierce. "I'm a woman and he just neglected to think that I would want it. The moose is gone, I know that now. I want to be compensated for the meat."

The York County Sheriff's Department says a cash payment is out, but Chief Deputy Maurice Ouellette is willing to do the next best thing: give Pierce the next moose struck in York County.

On Nov. 5, Pierce's car struck the fully-racked moose while she was driving her two children and a neighbor's son to school. Her 1991 Dodge Dynasty was wrecked but nobody in the car was seriously injured.

As the scene was being cleared, a sheriff's deputy allowed a neighbor of Pierce's to take away the carcass with his tractor.

Maine law is clear on the matter: The driver of a vehicle that kills a big-game animal gets first dibs on the carcass, as long as police are called to the scene and the vehicle is damaged.

In practice, the animal often goes to someone else because the driver is too injured to claim it, police say.

Pierce said she knew about the law, but lost track of the moose when the three children who had been riding with her were being treated in a hospital. She said her neighbor later offered her the moose for the $100 it took him to cart it away, but she didn't think she should spend the money.

By the time Pierce contacted the state attorney general's office on Nov. 12 to complain that her moose had been given away, the neighbor's price had gone up another $300 for the cost of butchering 450 pounds of meat.

Maine's law spelling out who owns big-game road kill comes into play fairly often. Last year, 4,055 deer collisions and 600 moose collisions were reported on Maine highways, according to Mark Latti, spokesman for the Maine Warden Service.

A butchered or dressed moose, which can't be bought or sold anywhere in Maine, can produce hundreds of pounds of food.

[swampfox]

she'a got a good case .

[woodseye]

She probably got home and her husband said wheres the Moose?At that point she started to backtrack to get her meat.All she had to do was pay the guy $100 and get her moose,how was she going to move that kind of weight out of the road?Bet he had gutted it already too.That alone is worth the $100 right there

woods

[recurveshooter]

guess , maybe i better stop swerving around the game in Me. when i am across the border .
just thinking ,if i use the old truck hit a moose ,few hundred pounds of meat ,insurance fixes truck (needs work any way ) looks like win win for me .
here in NB if you hit something in leagle hunting hours you can tag it .the rest of the time rangers haul it to the woods for the coyotes .what a waste as most of the time the meat is hardly hurt .
in my younger days i worked at an animal park ,the road kills were brought in there and any animals that were poached also meat that was ceased from poachers , all cut and wrapped .here in NB non of this meat goes for human consumption .------ herb