County Saves Towns Money With Deer Pickup

The Morris County Freeholders last year saved municipalities in the county $52,236.50 by picking up the tab to remove deer carcasses from municipal roads.

Stephen W. Hammond, director of the Morris County Department of Public Works, said in a press release 2,000 deer carcasses were removed from county and municipal roads last year, 363 more than were picked up in 2010. Of that total, 1,153 carcasses were picked up from municipal roads, according to the release.

In 2011, the total cost to the county for carcass removal on all county and municipal roads was $92,400. Morris Plains saved $42 while Morris Township saved $3,803, according to the release.

The Morris County Board of Freeholders in 2006 implemented a shared services program for the county’s 39 municipalities and assumed the cost of carcass removal when the New Jersey Department of Transportation transferred that responsibility to towns and counties, said Freeholder Gene Feyl, liaison to the Department of Public Works. 

“The freeholders thought at the time that the state was placing an unfair burden on municipalities,” Feyl said in the release. “We still do, which is why the county continues to cover the cost for the towns.”

According to Hammond, Morris County has a contract with Space Farms Zoo in Sussex, which has been picking up the carcasses since July at a rate of $42 per deer, compared with the $54.50 per carcass fee that had been charged by a previous company.  

Under the county program, each town is responsible for reporting deer carcasses on local and county roads within its municipality directly to the Space Farms. Space Farms Zoo removes dead deer from both county and local roads and uses the venison to feed the zoo’s more than 500 animals.