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How often do you see road kill?

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Old 05-22-13, 12:25 PM
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How often do you see road kill?

I swear I see it every time I go for a ride anymore. I saw two huge black birds today around a carcass on the side of the road, vultures? I don’t live in a rural area either. Squirrels, turtles, ducks/geese, rabbits, birds, snakes, lizards, cats, etc. Sometimes I see it laying there for at least a week just decaying by the day. I think it’s gotten worse since it has warmed up. Today I must’ve seen at least five carcasses.
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Old 05-22-13, 12:33 PM
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around here dead deer on the roads are pretty common, especially during certain times of the year. I'm fairly good at hopping obstacles but that definitely throws me for a loop
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Old 05-22-13, 12:46 PM
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Rode by two different small foxes yesterday. They had a cloud of flies around them. There has also been a huge dead turkey rotting on the side of the road. I can see more of it's skeleton every time I ride past. Deer, cats, possum, and even a dead cow once.

My recent problem has been LIVE groundhogs darting out in front of me. I have almost hit 3 in the last month and did catch a tail the other day. I thought for sure I was going to make him roadkill and might be myself. It was so close that I ran over his stubby tail.
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Old 05-22-13, 01:14 PM
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Squirrels pretty routinely. An occasional dead armadillo or possum. One time I saw the remains of a small deer that had gotten caught in a barbed wire fence. I also ran across a cow that looked like it had been struck by a boat. In a field with no body of water nearby. That made an interesting image:
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Old 05-22-13, 06:52 PM
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Frequently.

Mostly wombats and kangaroos.
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Old 05-22-13, 06:58 PM
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Some guy at Crazy Guy on a Bike logged all the road kill he saw along his transcontinental ride. We have our fair share around here. The strangest thing I have seen recently has been armadillos in SC, they are apparently moving east and north. Possums, rabbits and raccoon are the primary victims around here with deer being another strong contender.

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Old 05-22-13, 07:08 PM
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I ran out of food on a century ride once and seen a couple dead squirrels on the side of the road...
They were pretty tempting
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Old 05-22-13, 07:11 PM
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Skunks (pew), possum, and squirrels. Sometimes a snake.
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Old 05-22-13, 07:21 PM
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We see loads of 'dillos, snakes, squirrels and opossum. Can't go half a mile without seeing something on most days. Deer are not uncommon, but not a daily sight. Saw one yesterday evening that looked like a pretty recent kill surrounded by a swarm of turkey vultures.

The cow that got hit by a boat in a field takes the cake though.
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Old 05-22-13, 07:23 PM
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I saw a road kill last evening. Squirrel raced out in front of a car coming towards me, made it, but saw me biking the other way and panic-reversed like they do. It was a sickening thud but at least it was quick.
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Old 05-22-13, 07:42 PM
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Me nearly this evening...I was cycling on a dark country MUP with only safety lights....bloody badger jusdt stopped in front of me....thought I was going to go over it a and come off / be attacked ( despite popular belief foxes are very rare to attack people and tend to run away, however run into a badger and u should seriously think about running the other way...they can be quite violent...I would rather fight a fox than a badger any day.

It ran off at the last second however.... Oh and nearly ran a few suicidal rabbits over tonight,
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Old 05-22-13, 08:03 PM
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I see dead rabbits, skunks, possum, deer, dogs, cats, ground squirrels (for some reason I don't see many grey squirrels around these parts) and birds all the time on my regular route. I ride a rural highway regularly, so I also have to watch out for them crossing my paths as well.

Never saw one dead, but I came upon a beaver crossing the road right in front of me one evening, with no dam in sight.
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Old 05-22-13, 08:12 PM
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Dead snakes everywhere! And in AZ they're big.
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Old 05-22-13, 08:20 PM
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Lots of opossums, raccoons, squirrels around here. (Suburban/rural). Occasionally a skunk and rarely a deer. And birds, of course.

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Old 05-22-13, 08:59 PM
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Went for a ride with my daughter across the city last weekend and we saw a dead wallaby in the bike lane. It was in a pretty built up area and I have never seen them in the city previously dead or alive.
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Old 05-22-13, 09:32 PM
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Lucky this is not my bike .... I would hate to have to remove all the dead bits from the disk brakes..
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Old 05-22-13, 09:45 PM
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Originally Posted by TiBikeGuy
Lucky this is not my bike .... I would hate to have to remove all the dead bits from the disk brakes..
Could be worse.

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Old 05-22-13, 11:08 PM
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deer, elk .. or .. possums, raccoons and seagulls?
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Old 05-22-13, 11:47 PM
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Originally Posted by AnthonyMcEwen
Me nearly this evening...I was cycling on a dark country MUP with only safety lights....bloody badger jusdt stopped in front of me....thought I was going to go over it a and come off / be attacked ( despite popular belief foxes are very rare to attack people and tend to run away, however run into a badger and u should seriously think about running the other way...they can be quite violent...I would rather fight a fox than a badger any day.

It ran off at the last second however.... Oh and nearly ran a few suicidal rabbits over tonight,
I was riding to school today and cane within less than a foot of nailing this, which could have gone badly. luckily the little f**ker turned back just as quickly as it appeared. I was cursing at it for the next minute
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Old 05-23-13, 09:42 AM
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I commute on a rural road so I see a lot of road kill. But this very tuesday I saw something quite rare. In the dark my headlight beam came upon a cat carcass fresh from the night before and there was a huge racoon feeding on it, The racoon fur can be deceiving but it looked like a 50 pound racoon. He looked at me going by, not wanting to leave his snack.

A few kilometer further I came upon a well alive skunk that was salmoning on my side of the road . Being on a quiet rural road I was able to give it a lot of room.
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Old 05-23-13, 09:48 AM
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haha! cow hit by a boat... thats awesome
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Old 05-23-13, 01:19 PM
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Earlier in the spring, I saw quite a few dead wild turkeys.

While I wasn't on a bike at the time, my vote for most unusual road kill was a gator, along I-10 near the TX/LA line.
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Old 05-23-13, 02:19 PM
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What no one else has seen dead rattlesnakes?

When I was a better climber I would see them quite a bit on mountain roads near Los Angeles. Came uncomfortably close to a couple of live ones too.
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Old 05-23-13, 02:48 PM
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Hybrid coyote with golden fur like a Labrador retriever, lying in the bike lane. Very pretty for a coyote. I had to squeeze between it's big carcass and the traffic.

Lots of wildlife in the foothills east of Sacramento, you'll see road kill every time you ride. Possums, skunks, cats, turkeys, rabbits, squirrels, deer. There is a lot of other wildlife, but it either stays near water or avoids the roads.
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Old 05-23-13, 02:54 PM
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Originally Posted by Keith99
What no one else has seen dead rattlesnakes?

When I was a better climber I would see them quite a bit on mountain roads near Los Angeles. Came uncomfortably close to a couple of live ones too.

Oh yeah, snakes. I rode over a rattler one day, sunning itself on a trail near my house. I thought I was alone, picked a bad time to glance back at my rear wheel. When I turned back around it was too late.
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