[zzzzteana] Hit a Bigfoot in Maine?  You own it! http://www.pressherald.com/news/state/021201moose.shtml

Maine Sunday Telegram
Portland, Maine
Sunday, December 1, 2002

Driver who hit moose fights county over meat

By GISELLE GOODMAN, Portland Press Herald Writer
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via http://www.lorencoleman.com
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ACTON  In her freezer at home, Lisa Pierce has ground beef and roasts,
frozen vegetables and french fries, even a couple of Popsicles. What she
doesn't have is the meat of the moose she hit and killed with her car on
Nov. 5, the moose that was rightfully hers, but instead went to a neighbor.

The lack of it has her embroiled in a fight with the York County Sheriff's
Department to get back what she says she is owed.

"I think the deputy thought he was doing me a favor," said Pierce. "I'm a
woman and he just neglected to think that I would want it. The moose is
gone, I know that now. I want to be compensated for the meat."

Whether or not that happens is uncertain. Her experience, though, highlights
a law some Mainers may not be aware of, but should get to know during this
peak time of deer-versus-car accidents, as the animals, in their mating
season, come out of the woods.

The law is simple: A big-game carcass caught by a car - be it a moose, deer
or bear - goes to the person who hits it, as long as a law enforcement
officer is called to the scene and the vehicle is damaged in the accident.

It comes up quite often in Maine, say officials. Last year, there were 4,055
cases of vehicles and deer colliding on Maine roads and 600 accidents
involving moose, according to Mark Latti, spokesman for the Maine Warden
Service.

"In a state of what, 1.4 million, with only 215,000 licensed hunters, I
don't know how many motor vehicle drivers would know how to dress out a
moose," said Latti. "You do have the option of keeping it."

Which, for some people, can be valuable compensation for a damaged car.
Farm-grown deer meat can retail for $8 to $20 per pound in stores. And a
butchered or dressed moose, which can't be bought or sold anywhere in Maine,
can produce hundreds of pounds of food.

Latti said when it comes to moose, the law has been abused since its
inception in 1991. Every now and then an officer will issue a summons to a
driver for intentionally killing a moose with a car. That kind of "hunting"
makes no sense to Latti.

Hitting a moose, even at a slow speed, is no laughing matter. Large adult
moose can weigh up to 1,500 pounds and can be more than 9 feet tall. Since
the bulk of their weight is above the hood level of most cars, their bodies
often come crashing through windshields in collisions. More often than not,
crashes like these damage the vehicle, the people inside and the animal.

Sometimes they are fatal. In 1998, Latti said, there were six moose-related
fatalities. After that, when the number of moose-hunting permits went from
2,000 to 3,000, there were less. Maine had three moose-related fatalities in
2000, one in 2001 and two this year so far, said Stephen McCausland,
spokesman for the Maine Public Safety Department.

Pierce considers herself lucky that she and the three children in her car
did not become part of that statistic early on Election Day. But she also
feels cheated by the whole situation. After all, her car was totaled.

On the morning of the accident, Pierce was taking her two children and a
neighbor's son to school in her 1991 Dodge Dynasty. She said she was going
along at about 35 mph on a well-traveled road, when a moose came out of
nowhere.

"By the time my brain could see moose, he was part of my windshield," she
said. 

Pierce is well aware of the law, so as she sat in the ambulance with the
children, being treated for cuts and bruises, she thought about the moose.
But the four of them were transferred to the hospital before she could deal
with it, so she said she wasn't able to follow up on the animal until later
that day.

When she inquired, she was told the deputy on the scene gave the
fully-racked bull moose to a neighbor who showed up with a tractor.

Her neighbor, she said, subsequently offered her the moose for the $100 it
took him to carry it away, money she didn't think she should spend. By the
time she contacted the Attorney General's Office on Nov. 12 to complain
about the deputy giving her moose away, the neighbor's price had gone up
another $300 for the cost of butchering 450 pounds of meat.

And when she called York County Chief Deputy Maurice Ouellette to complain
that she should be compensated for the moose because it was the officer's
fault that she didn't have it, Ouellette told her he could not give her cash
and the best he could do was to give her the next moose struck in York
County.

"At that point in time it became an issue of not wanting moose anymore, but
wanting money," Ouellette said.

That conversation, and a similar one she had with York County Sheriff Phil
Cote, left Pierce enraged and she now feels the issue has gone beyond the
moose.

But the circumstances that brought her to this point are not surprising to
other officials.

"It's the officer's discretion," said Latti. "And if the officer feels the
person can't immediately remove (the animal), he's got to think of public
safety and other people on the roadway. If someone is worried about her
children in her car, the last thing a law enforcement officer wants to ask
is if she wants the moose."

Maine State Police Trooper Jeremy Forbes said when he arrives at accidents
that involve a serious injury to a person, the issue of who gets the animal,
deer or moose, becomes secondary.

"The priorities are the injuries and getting people to the hospital," he
said. "If they are really hurt and going to the hospital, the animal can't
wait, so we'll probably give it to the next person who stops by."

This is not comforting to Pierce. She said the deputy could have come to the
ambulance and asked her what she wanted to do with the moose. With her
boyfriend, a hunter, nearby, she could have easily taken care of the animal
herself.

She knows her situation is probably a lost cause. But she hopes other
people, especially other women, do not have the same experience.

"What about people who don't know the law?" she said. "Standing up for my
rights has just been a big headache."

Staff Writer Giselle Goodman can be contacted at 324-4888 or at:

ggoodman@pressherald.com


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