Collecting a Road-killed Opossum

July 27, 2017

Question: I saw an opossum dead on the side of the road yesterday, not playing possum (it was actually dead). I wanted to take it home to keep the bones but I left it there untouched because I didn’t know what the law on collecting was. If I find an animal like that again, can I take it home and process it? If I can’t, is there someone I can talk to who might allow me to keep the bones after the state processes it? (Rachael)

Answer: Road-killed wildlife may not be possessed. “The accidental taking of a bird, mammal, reptile, or amphibian by collision with a motor vehicle while the vehicle is being operated on a road or highway is not a violation of this code” (Fish and Game Commission, section 2000.5). This means it is not illegal to accidentally kill the animal, however, the Fish and Game Code does not authorize possession of wildlife accidentally killed in vehicle collisions. Opossum are classified as non-game mammals that may be hunted with a hunting license (California Code of Regulations Title 14, section 472(a)). The only way for you to legally possess them would be to hunt them or to obtain a scientific collecting permit, if your collection purposes are for scientific research purposes.

In California, if you find a game animal or a non-game animal which died of natural causes, can you keep it? In Montana, "Individuals may possess, transport, sell, or purchase naturally shed antlers, or the antlers with a skull or portion of a skull attached from a game animal that has died from natural causes and that has not been illegally killed . . . It is illegal to possess a bighorn sheep head/horn picked up in the wild."  Does California have a similar rule for animals which died from natural causes?

A couple of years ago I was hunting, and saw a bird fly up from a tuft of hair sticking out of the snow.  I went over and saw an animal, which I assumed was a deer, covered with a couple of inches of snow.  I bent over to brush snow off its head to see what kind of deer it was, and as soon as I touched its head I knew it wasn't a deer!  It was a mature male mountain lion.  I brushed off the snow and took pictures.  When I showed the pictures to a game biologist at the area check station, he said the mountain lion appeared to have been killed by another mountain lion.  He had written a paper on kills of mountain lions and bobcats by mountain lions.  He reminded me that because the mountain lion had been killed by natural causes, I could keep it.  So a couple of days later I went back and collected the head.  I was surprised that nothing had eaten any more of the lion, because there is a wolf pack in the area.  I was more than usually careful when hiking through the area, knowing that there was another mountain lion in the area which was big and mean enough to kill a mature male mountain lion.

I had the head cleaned by beetles.  The skull measured only 5/8" under Boone and Crockett.  The next to last picture shows the lion skull with the skull of a bear which I shot.  The last picture shows our cat Sherman with the skull, looking unimpressed.  Unfortunately Sherman was killed and eaten by a mountain lion about a year later.

That's badass!

Very cool!

Sorry bout Sherman, we lost a cat to a coyote here in good ol suburban Marin.  All you need is a GWS skull and you would have quite the predator collection.  Do GWS have skulls?