Dead freaking animals!
 

My commute is getting more and more polluted by the stench of month-old rotting carcasses.

Dead raccoon, dead tiny dog, dead deer, dead geese ... hit by cars and they continue to rot until enough cars have mashed them into a paste for the rain to wash away.

My city doesn't sweep streets, clean streets, remove broken glass from streets in any way. It also won't remove dead animals. I am going to call my city councilman and complain; I won't go near these things, nearly vomit from the smell, and I'm paying taxes to maintain roads which have bricks showing through the asphalt because they haven't been maintained since they were lain. I'm not cleaning this up; my taxes go to maintaining the streets, and removing dead animals is part of that. Yet the city refuses.

If all else fails, maybe I can find some nice volunteers that can stomach it. The dead animals can be dumped in parks or in front lawns of middle schools, or maybe on the stairs of city hall since it's their mess to clean up anyway. Just being nice and bringing it to you so you don't have to go so far.

Around here they usually get scavenged by other critters pretty fast. I have even seen triple road kill, where animals have been flattened while eating other animals that have been flattened.
Kind of ironic.

Around here they decay for months before washing away by rain. The bike path and the park next to the middle school smell like dead bodies. You could murder a small child and dump it right in the woods 3 feet from the road and the police would never find it because it wouldn't produce an unusual smell because the whole area always smells like that.

That is pretty gross.
I usually commute rural roads in the dark and one of my biggest safety concerns is hitting a deer (dead or alive) on a high speed downhill.
That would make for a bad day.

In town, they will scrape up what can be scraped up within 24 hours, but out of town, if it gets flattened enough before nightfall that nothing wants to eat it, it pretty much just has to rot away.

Anything much smaller than a deer is going to get picked apart pretty quick by scavengers. Aren't there any crows around?

A deer will be removed by some official unless an opportunist grabs it for sausage before hand.

Squirrels, skunks, cats and crows. They very rarely get cleaned up.

slow economy+budget deficits= fewer local services :(

Thankfully, I have a wide array of (living) fauna along my commute to take care of any messes. However, I swear a truck carrying manure has a flat tire today, because about every ten feet there was a pile of foul smelling soil. That was pretty unpleasant.

Saw a dead downy woodpecker yesterday. Sucks cuz I have liked woodpeckers ever since watching Woody as a kid.

I use a leaf blower to clean the MUP between my place and my job. I don't wait for the government to do anything. Fortunately, there is no such thing as road kill in Las Vegas unless its somebodys dog but I ride the MUP, not the road.

I also decided to not wait on our local government to take action in keeping our local bike infrastructure clean, but after a few weeks, I found that it's good to check with the public works department on what certain procedures that one can legally do when cleaning their public right of ways.

Yes! Though it is more scary on my motorcycle.

I have a dead skunk rotting away on one of my climbs on my way home. So I'm breathing hard and only going 5 mph as I go by. I never saw the skunk but I know it's there. Now that I think about it I almost ran over a skunk myself, twice, back in Jan. or Feb. riding my bicycle. I'm glad I didn't.

My regular commute goes through suburban neighborhoods. One morning I spotted a dead deer on a irrigation canal road adjacent to the paved road. Strange place for a deer to be. I assume someone hit it and then dragged it over to the canal road. I saw a person who lives in the neighborhood and told them about it. They might want to call someone to haul it away before it stinks too bad.

It never got removed and it stunk for a few days when I rode past there and is quite dessicated now. Guess the folks in that neighborhood don't mind that sort of stuff hanging around. <shrug>

The evidence seems to discredit this claim.

Welcome to Bodymore, Murderland. They don't seem to understand raising the property taxes in the city drives people right over the line to the county. Until they figure out the basic principals of public finance, your daily experiences are unlikely to change.

Besides, they're busy refurbing Pratt and Light streets for the IRL race Labor Day Weekend. They don't have time to be picking up dead animals!

Also, are you talking about Gwynn Falls Trail? That place always has a stench to it.

Yes I'm talking about Gwynn Falls Trail area. What's an IRL race? What's a Labor Day weekend? The Labor party is in the UK isn't it? Or is it Canada?

Get this and you're good to go.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kqedquest/2297997863/

I've passed the same dead dog for the past 3 days. Its depressing as I am a dog person. Don't worry you aren't the only one.

The MUP I use to commute doesn't get alot of travel. The street right beside it is full of bikes everyday. I have no idea why people don't use this wonderful trail but I hope they stay in the road and I can keep the trail to myself.
It looks like I will only really need to clean it once each spring and fall. I can get dropped off uphill and blow the entire 7 miles off by days end. I'm trying to figure out how I can shoulder a gallon gas can for the duration.
I could care less how the people who don't clean the trail feel about how the person who does clean the trail cleans the trail.

slug season is winding down and garter snake migration is picking up. I hit one the other day as it was racing across the trail, I felt really bad. I think I hit it behind the body cavity so it was mostly spare parts I took out (I hope).

More racoons and possums out there topping the road pizza lately.

It's creepy struggling on a hard bike ride and having vultures circle me overhead.

I've come around a corner fast to see a half-dozen vultures feasting on a deer carcass. I thought for sure I was going to collide with the birds, they were too full to get a quick take off. The encounter scared all of us.

I was getting circled by a bald eagle on the 4th, couldn't be more patriotic than to end the day supporting our national bird

I don't care if vultures are circling overhead (we don't get wild vultures in the UK so I love to see them circle when abroad). I'd take a less enlightened view if they crapped on me though.