by If you are a deer hunter and you have ever used scent products, you know of Tink’s #69 Doe-in-Rut deer scent. It is the most famous of products developed by Tink Nathan. Now Mr. Nathan is looking beyond just deer scents and lures to politics. He is a candidate for the Texas House of Representatives running as a Republican.
His platform? Roadkill! More specifically, an end to the prohibition in Texas on picking up roadkill for human consumption.
From the Dallas Observer:
He’s also the only candidate, apparently in the entire state, bold enough stand up and defend Texans’ God-given right to eat animals they run over in their cars.
As it stands, picking up roadkill is a crime. Partly, this is because of health-and-safety concerns (hard to know what vile pathogens might be swarming over any given carcass), partly it’s to discourage people from using their cars as hunting weapons. (This has actually been documented. In a 2012 Dallas Morning News story, a state game warden’s staffer recalled a couple of incidents in which motorists intentionally ran over exotic deer in Kerr County, right in Nathan’s backyard.)
Nathan thinks that scavenging roadkill is a personal decision best left up to a driver and the critter he just flattened. There’s no need for the government to stick its nose in.
Besides, he told the San Antonio Express-News, why should buzzards be the only ones to benefit from the frequent animal-car collisions that occur by the thousands on Texas roads. “That meat goes to waste,” Nathan says. “Why not utilize it?”
I think he might have a point. In other states it is legal and oft times fresh (emphasis on fresh) roadkill is taken to charitable food pantries for distribution.
Besides, I like his campaign slogan – “Don’t Send Another Lawyer To Austin” – not to mention the fact he is a Life Member of the NRA.