It’s springtime in the Rockies, and that means the days are getting warmer and the grass by the side of the road is getting green. A sad result of this spring awakening is that deer frequently graze by the side of the road, and as a result there are many deer that get hit by cars. The other day a friend of mine was driving home from work and saw a deer get hit by a car. The deer managed to continue off the road a bit before it collapsed. The woman who hit the deer clearly was not going to grab her knife out of the trunk of her car and go field dress the deer, so my friend called Barney…who else but a catchatarian would consider heading out at dusk to butcher a deer that had been hit by a car?
As it turns out, it is not all that uncommon for people in Colorado to harvest meat from game animals that are killed on the highway. I learned in my hunter safety class that many Division of Wildlife offices have lists of people they can call to come and harvest game meat…mostly churches and other organizations that feed the homeless or low income families. Apparently though it is pretty rare around here, because when Barney got to the scene and asked the police officer if it was okay to take the meat, the officer said it was the first time in his career that anyone had made such a request. We were lucky that my friend happened to see this accident, because Barney grilled the tenderloin for a group of us, and it was delicious. He also smoked the hind quarters with the intention of slicing the meat to use on sandwiches, but that meat turned out so well that we ate almost all of it that day as well.
We all had a pretty good laugh at the fact that Barn was willing to drop everything (his alma mater was playing to win a spot in the elite eight, for goodness sake!) and go butcher the deer. But we also all had stomachs full of fresh, wild venison. So hats off to Roadkill Barney!