So what do you do if you hit an animal?

[deerman]

Quote:
Why are the deer more important than the possums?


(Nevermind, I know what your answer will be, it just doesn't compute with me).


Life is life’s greatest gift. Guard the life of another creature as you would your own because it is your own. On life’s scale of values, the smallest is no less precious to the creature who owns it than the largest. ~Lloyd Biggle Jr.

Easy to answer:







Deer don't kill my chickens. One less varmint to worry about.

No but deer kill more people in the USA than any other animal.......lost a dear friend when he hit a deer with his harley. at noon even

 

[OtterCreekRanch]

I know I personally would appreciate if someone hit my dog or cat and came and told me about it, specially if it was left alive so that I could get medical treatment going immediately. Having barn cats and living where we do (not on a busy road, but far too many people drive down it way too fast because we are on a straight away...speed limit is stupposed to be 35 MPH...i know some people must do about 60 though) we have lost far too many animals to having been ran over. Only 1 ever survived. It was a tiny Chihuahua when I was a kid. A friend of mine's mom hit him on the way to work in a huge truck. She did call us and tell us about it. He had a broken pelvis but otherwise was ok. He healed fine.

My dad hit a blue heeler puppy that belonged to some people down the street once. They always had litters of puppies and they were always out by the road. One ran out in front of him and he couldn't stop. It didn't kill it so he scooped up the puppy and took it and knocked on the door. They were MAD. Called him every name in the book, threatened him, etc. He said he would never tell another person he had hit their animal again.

About a year ago my husband and I were coming home late at night from shopping and found a cat that had been hit in the road that had not died. I am not sure what was wrong with him. He had no external injuries but did have a small amount of blood in his nose and his back end didn't work right. We debated leaving him and hoping he had an owner that would find him, but I just could not do it. He was obviously in pain and when we got out of the car to move him off the road he started calling to us. When I approched him he started purring. So my husband put on some gloves and picked him up and put him in the floorboard of the truck. We brought him home and put him in a quiet dog carrier for the night. He was such a sweet boy. I called around and no vets would take him without an owner (sad). We ended up taking him to animal control a few towns away and they charged us $50 to surrender him...didn't believe it was not our cat I guess. They put him to sleep immediately without trying to find an owner. In this situation I am not sure what to do differently. It would have broke my heart to leave him there, but I now know that we cannot afford to "help" another animal. I guess from now on we have to just keep driving. That is pretty dang sad.


Edit to add: I don't drive much so I have never personally hit an animal. My husband has hit a few. Last time he hit a rabbit I made him stop and we seen that it was dead. It was not tore up so we brought it home and fed it to the dogs. I would have rather that than let it go to waste having been ran over too many times for even the buzzards to eat it. The dogs appreciated it though I felt bad for the bunny.

 

[Kaitie09]

I have not hit any animals, but have watched one get hit. There was a huge white goose wattling down the main road like it owned the place. The speed limit is 50mph on this road but the goose was making its way to the side so we though it would be okay. We were going in one direction, he was going in another. All of a sudden we see this huge TT coming down the road toward the goose. The goose did not even realize the tractor trailer was there until it got hit. He swung his head around right as the bumper hit him. He never did come out from under the truck, so I'm assuming he was obliterated.

 

[justafewchickens]

I luckily have never hit an animal except for a box turtle in the rain. I swear it looked like leaves or debris and when I realised what it was, it was too late. It was a dangerous back road so I couldn't stop, but on my way home it wasn't there, so I think its shell(hopefully) saved it.

And I will never comprehend purposfully running down any animal. It especially makes me sick to hear of people running over snakes sunning themselves, or crossing because people are afraid of them. What can the snake do to you? You are in a car. Sorry, rant over.

 

[justafewchickens]

Oh, I just remembered, I was coming home one day and a few yards from my street where I turn in I saw a box turtle. My road is not busy ever,so I park on the road and go back to the back road to help it.
As I walk there comes two huge construction trucks,the ones that carry the garbage and such. Huge. Well it runs over the turtle, just destroyed it. I was so sad, and sickened. All I could do was turn around and get back in my car. It was so close to the side of the road,I knew they would have missed it if I hadn't been on the road.

 

[BookWorm243]

I haven't hit anything, as I don't drive yet

It does bring up a personal experience tho. It was about 3 years ago when we were in Concord. We were on our way home an there was a HUGE snapping turtle in the road. The car coming in the other direction stopped and so did we. We got out of the car and got the huge dude to the other side of the road ( just over the line ) This was a huge task as he was not happy to have us pushing and poking him to move. He seemed very content in the middle of the road and I didn't feel like getting bit my him, thats for sure! Anyway, by the time we got him out of the road we were holding up traffic so we moved our car and the cars on the other side of the road also left. We got out of the car just in time to see two stupid guys in a huge suburban come flying up the road ( 65 mph maybe? ) Swerved off the road to run over this poor guy we spent 20 minutes saving

They then slowed down so we could hear them laugh there heads off as they drove off

I was almost right next to the turtle I'm still amazed that I didn't get hit in the process

They cracked his shell right down the middle, I cried for days after that

People

 

[dinahmoe]

Quote:
love that

i hate it when people tell me "well there are plenty of deer,it doesn't matter".i say it matters to THAT one.
( i am talking about population controls of animals)

anyway,i have killed a few animals and the ones that didn't die,i shot them or took them home to nurse back.i have stopped for alot more that others have hit.i can't just leave them there.i will see if they have a tag and pull them out of the road.

i have always thought about what if it was a skunk and it was suffering.i guess i would try and help any living creature in a situation like that.

as far as hitting possums or anything on purpose

,i cringe when i hear the crunchy sound when i accidently run over an already dead critter.

 

[dinahmoe]

Quote:
stupid people

i know a woman-not me- had that happen to her.she was stopped in the road with some others trying to save a cat.a car came slowly by like it was going to help and then ran over the cat on purpose.well, the next morning when the those people came out of their house THAT cat was on the hood of their car.she was a Judge.

 

[dinahmoe]

Quote:
alot of people hit turtles on purpose so its not your fault.some people just don't care.

 

[briter30]

If it was a stray or wild animal, I would keep on driving, sad that I killed it but scared to touch a hurt animal. If it was "the neighborhood dog" I would try to get in contact with the owner as quick as possible.