Politician: Roadkill Collection Should Be Legal

Is your average roadkill a stomach-churning mess, or tonight's dinner? A Texas politician says it will become the latter if he wins a seat in the Texas House of Representatives and succeeds in pushing his agenda, NBC News reports. Tink Nathan, a 72-year-old Republican, wants to rescind the state's law against gathering roadkill. "That meat goes to waste. Why not utilize it?" he asks the San Antonio Express-News. "Certainly not all of it could be saved. Nobody will take it if it's stinking," but "axis [deer] venison sells for $26 a pound."

On his Facebook page, Nathan says the Department of Transportation collected more than 1,400 deer from roads in a year in a single Texas county—a costly operation. But Texas Park and Wildlife argues that gathering squished animals for dinner is both a health and safety hazard. People collecting roadkill "could be struck by other vehicles," a TPWD spokesman tells WOAI. And "eating dead animals could result in serious health issues for anyone who did something like that." Some states do allow it, but Texas banned the practice in 2007. (More roadkill stories.)