Who is leaving animal carcasses near a Canyon Creek subdivision? The remains of moose, deer, and possibly bears and fish are being dumped on a side road that heads south from Canyon Creek. The spot is .7 km south of Hwy. 2. It is also only a few minutes walk from the homes of residents.
“I’m worried about the danger of (attracting) wild animals. There’s children playing in all these yards here,” says Diane Wilson, who lives in the nearby subdivision.
She does not know who is leaving the animals, but she knows they have been doing it for a while. She tried to find someone at the Municipal District or Fish and Wildlife, last year, who could take the animals away.
“A smell comes off of it, especially on warm days. With wind, the whole subdivision smells like carrion,” she says.
Miles Grove, District Fish and Wildlife Officer, suggests that the animals are either roadkill from the highway or have been left by hunters.
Alberta Transportation looks after the stretch of Hwy. 2 that runs through Canyon Creek. Rod Johnson at Alberta Highway Services, the contractor that does the actual maintenance for Alberta Transportation, says that roadkill is never dumped near populated areas and there are no designated dumps anywhere near Canyon Creek.
“It goes up to the oil patch,” he says.
Also, none of the animals at the scene appear to have telltale injuries like broken legs that would indicate they had been hit by a motor vehicle. They do appear to have been butchered, or ‘dressed,’ by hunters. Whether it was hunters with licences or poachers that left the animals is difficult to ascertain.
If licenced hunters killed the animals in season, then the only law that has been broken is a “litter charge for dumping,” says Grove.
Littering is offence that can be pursued by the RCMP, Fish and Wildlife, or the M.D.’s by-law enforcement officers. What is less clear is who is responsible for cleaning up this mess.
Grove says that “the M.D. might be able to clean it up” or even that volunteer effort might be necessary.
George Snider, Director of Field Services for the M.D., says that the clean up is outside the M.D.’s jurisdiction.
“Even if it’s a public road, because we’re in the green zone, Fish and Wildlife would have to be the first ones contacted. It would be a different matter if it were a domestic animal,” he says.
Nobody, however, disputes the necessity of getting rid of these rotting carcasses.
“We don’t want a bunch of bait for bears in spring,” says Grove.

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