Roadkill deer collection not a job for the faint of heart — or stomach

Thanksgiving week is a good time of year to be doing Steve Boeser’s morning job.

Boeser will admit it’s not glorious work. The 56-year-old Washington Township resident is contracted by Murrysville to pick up roadkill deer. But the colder the weather, the easier his job is.

On a late-November morning, with the temperature hovering around freezing, Boeser headed down Logan Ferry Road toward Holiday Hills Drive for a report of a deer struck by a car the night before.

“These are the easy ones, right off the road,” Boeser said as he pulled on a pair of work gloves and began maneuvering a doe into better position to load onto the cart at the back of his pickup. The doe’s body was intact — which is not always the case — and a combination of relative freshness and the cold weather kept the smell of decay at bay.

“When I started doing this about 25 years ago, the rule was that it had to be a road kill,” Boeser said. “But then we started getting into, ‘Well, this one got hit and ran behind the neighbor’s house with two broken legs and died.’ ”

Boeser is one of many local contractors who clean up the hundreds of thousands of deer strikes that take place throughout the year in Pennsylvania.

“I used to keep my own records as well, of whether it was a buck, doe, fawn, that type of thing,” he said.

In Murrysville alone, Boeser has picked up 157 deer this year, according to Murrysville police records. Going back to 2003, he has collected 2,773.

Between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023, Pennsylvanians accounted for 153,397 of 1.8 million animal collisions reported to State Farm, the country’s largest automobile insurer. AAA Insurance reports that its average deer-related claim in the East Central Region is $5,600.

Across the country, deer strikes cause an estimated $1 billion in vehicle damage, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.

October is easily Boeser’s busiest time of year, averaging nearly 18 deer pickups.

“That’s when they’re in the first rut,” he said. “Right now (in late November) it’s over, and the next one will start around mid-December when things will pick up a little. My calls for ‘not-found’ deer will also go up.”

If Boeser gets a pickup call, but there’s no deer when he arrives, he will search up and down the road to see if he can find it.

“Especially this time of year, I make sure to let the police know where I’m at picking up deer, in case they get calls about someone wandering around in the dark,” he said. “But people are mostly so happy it’s getting done, there really haven’t been any issues.”

On state roads, PennDOT work crews handle roadkill pickups. During the course of 2023, through Oct. 31, District 12 contractors in Westmoreland, Fayette, Greene and Washington counties removed about 6,600 dead deer from state roads.

Boeser charges $50 for each deer he collects. Along with the nuisance animal trapping that he also does in his spare time, it’s a nice way to supplement his income, and he can get it done early in the morning before heading to his regular job at Beall’s Nursery & Landscaping in Plum.

When he’s out of town, sometimes his family will give it a shot.

“My son said he won’t do it unless it’s below 45 degrees,” Boeser said. “One time he was doing it in July, and when he went to grab a deer’s front leg, it just came right off in his hand.”

Boeser takes roadkill deer to the Valley Landfill in Penn Township.

“One time I came back from a summer vacation and one of the landfill operators came over laughing,” Boeser said. “He goes, ‘I love it when you’re on vacation. Your son must have tried three times to get a deer off the carrier the other day. He threw up every time.’ ”

In addition to cleaning up the roadside, some roadkill collection also advances scientific research in Pennsylvania. When Game Commission contractors in its wildlife disease management areas pick up a deer, they remove the head and send it to the commission.

“In places where we’ve found chronic wasting disease, if it’s a viable sample, they’ll get it to us so we can test it for CWD,” said Seth Mesoras, information and education supervisor at the commission’s Southwest Regional Office in Fairfield Township.

The commission has four contractors operating throughout its region, primarily in more rural areas.

“As you get into Allegheny County and closer to Pittsburgh, there’s a lot more places where each town will have a contractor who collects deer,” Mesoras said.

And while most people are just getting out of bed or starting on their morning coffee, contractors like Boeser will be on the road, seeking out what most drivers take great pains to avoid.

“My record is seven deer in one morning,” he said.