New season of splat begins, requiring roadkill cleanups
Mar 21, 2009 at 12:01 AM Mar 21, 2009 at 2:20 AM
Ah, spring. Purple crocuses peeking through the ground, grass taking on an Irish hue -- and the scent of squished skunk on city streets.
Bunnies, raccoons, opossums and squirrels join their striped brethren, as do deer, in what sometimes becomes a death march as they look for mates or scrounge for food.
Plenty of them end up as road pizzas, so numerous that city and state removal crews have trouble keeping up.
But don't blame city and state budget cuts if the roads seem to be littered with bodies. Officials say the cuts haven't affected collection of dead animals.
"Nothing has changed in terms of picking it up," said Nancy Burton, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Transportation's local office. "It's part of our responsibility and our duty."
Burton said transportation workers in all 88 counties clear roadkill from highways so that the carcasses don't affect travel. If there are woods nearby, they carry the animal there and let it decompose; otherwise, they take it to one of the department's composting facilities or a landfill, Burton said.
Central Ohio doesn't have a composting facility for roadkill, according to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency's Angel Arroyo-Rodriguez, an environmental specialist. He said transportation workers in some counties drag dead deer out of the way and cover the bodies with wood chips to help them decompose.
Transportation workers patrol for dead animals and retrieve them when they're reported, Burton said.
The city of Columbus mostly picks up roadkill after it's been reported to the refuse department's dead-animal collection office or the city's 311 call center, said Mary Carran Webster, assistant director of public service.
One full-time refuse worker is dedicated to the task, taking the carcasses to a landfill. Last year, he picked up 2,783, of which 916 were domestic animals and 1,867 were wild, Webster said. She said those are typical numbers.
Dead animals that aren't picked up immediately often become food for scavengers, such as turkey vultures and sometimes black vultures. Coyotes, opossums and bald eagles dine on the dead, too, as do mosquitoes.
"If they're composted, they're serving a purpose, and if they're just left on the side of the road, they can still serve a purpose, although it's not very glamorous," said Donna Daniel, a biologist with the Ohio Division of Wildlife.
Webster said the city's biggest roadkill pickup months are October and April.
The state doesn't keep track, but the more animals are moving around, the more likely they are to get hit by cars, Daniel said. Lots of skunks die after coming out of their mini-hibernation in late January and February to mate.
Right now, raccoons and opossums are more at risk, she said.
kgray@dispatch.com