Yuen: Yes, someone really sawed the head off that roadkill deer

On a recent Sunday morning, Carrie Schmitz and her family were cruising to church in Golden Valley when they spotted an enormous buck lying dead in the highway median. Her three children went wild at the sight of its massive antlers, shouting dubiously that it must have been a “30-pointer.”

About an hour and a half later, at 9:30 a.m., the family was heading home and saw the same deer in the same place. But this time, Schmitz’s seventh-grade son noticed, it had no head.

“You could see all the flesh and the bones. It was a clean cut, like somebody had sawed it off,” Schmitz said. “My kids were kind of horrified. They were like, ‘Who would do that?’ ”

Schmitz posted her story on a Golden Valley community Facebook page, asking if it was normal for someone to decapitate a road-killed deer and abandon the rest of its carcass in the middle of Hwy. 55.

“Yes normal,” one man quickly chimed in.

Other residents tried to educate Schmitz about the custom of mounting antlers on walls. Another left a comment referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who once dumped a bear carcass in New York City’s Central Park.

But most people did not directly address her question until another commenter weighed in, like a voice from God:

That is the only correct answer.

Still, it occurs more frequently than you might think.

It turns out that the rules of civilization are suspended when giant antlers are involved. In Minnesota, the sight of a trophy buck can override human decency and a hunter’s code of ethics. The beheading in Golden Valley, a first-ring suburb where majestic deer frequently traipse through manicured lawns, not only fascinated me — it sent me down a path to find the antler bandit.

Several times a year, typically in the fall rut, the Department of Natural Resources receives reports of people decapitating dead bucks along roadways. They will typically harvest the precious racks to mount them in their garage or hunting cabin and show off to their friends, said Lt. Col. Robert Gorecki, assistant director of the DNR’s enforcement division.

“People do get very excited about seeing these antlers, even if they didn’t shoot the animal,” Gorecki said. “Unfortunately, sometimes they do cut the heads off and leave the remainder of the deer laying on the side of the road.”

Granted, I’m just a suburban soccer mom who buys her meat at Costco, but I found it in poor taste and unsporting to mount the antlers of a deer whose life you had no part in taking. Tony Jones, an Edina-based writer and outdoorsman, could see my point. A trophy mount on one’s walls, he said, carries nearly universal meaning.

“Almost all the time, it means, ‘I shot that deer,’ or ‘My grandpa shot that deer,’” said Jones, a board member of the Minnesota chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. “Almost any hunter would consider it unethical to cut off the head off a road-killed deer and then hang it on the wall as though you had hunted that deer.”

One of the core hunting principles the antler thief violated was the concept of “wanton waste.” Hunters are not supposed to squander any part of the animal that could be used for meat. That code is even written into Minnesota law.

“You can’t shoot the deer and just cut out the tenderloin and leave the carcass in the forest,” Jones explained. “You’re supposed to use the entire deer. It’s the law, but frankly it’s more of a hunter’s ethic.”

Gorecki confirmed that the antler collector should have used any meat that was salvageable, and at the very least, disposed of the carcass. The DNR did not receive any calls requesting a permit to take the buck, another potential violation.

Now let’s get back to Schmitz family’s other question: Who would do this?

Someone must have seen the person who sawed off the buck’s head in broad daylight on a well-traveled highway. My heart danced a jig when I learned that a MnDOT traffic camera pointed at the exact intersection, at Hwy. 55 and Douglas Avenue.

The agency sent me footage of the 90-minute window provided by Schmitz, spanning the period when she and her family were at church. But alas, the camera was pointing in the opposite direction of the median where the deer lay, so the act took place just out of view.

Hours after first spotting the buck, Schmitz’s family got a final look later that afternoon on their way to church bingo. That’s when they saw police inspecting the animal. A city spokesperson said before officers arrived, someone had reported seeing an “older male” near the carcass.

These incidents are tough to investigate without witnesses or other evidence, but sometimes they are resolved, Gorecki said. When he was working as a conservation officer years ago in Baudette, Minn., a car struck and killed two bucks who had been fighting along the highway. A man eyeing the bucks pulled over and tried calling Gorecki, hoping to secure a permit. But while he was waiting to hear back, another man drove up and defiantly threw both deer into the bed of his truck.

Gorecki caught up with the man and charged him with multiple offenses, including littering. He was convicted and fined.