Who Picks Up Dead Animals in Wisconsin?

Wisconsin has no dead-animal agency. It has one rule, and WisDOT's Highway Maintenance Manual states it: responsibility follows whoever maintains the ground the animal lies on. The table is the rule. Each section after it opens the source for one row.

Two limits hold everywhere. WisDOT publishes no carcass hotline; the public channel is 911 or the county sheriff, and 511 Wisconsin's report form has no animal category. And no agency reviewed publishes a pickup from private property: Milwaukee, Madison, Appleton and Eau Claire reach past the pavement, but only to the curb, the cart, the terrace or the boulevard.

WisDOT's Highway Maintenance Manual 07-15-01, "Carcass Removal" (July 2025), says: "The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) issues and manages Car Killed Deer (CKD) contracts to private vendors or counties to manage deer carcasses. The contract requires vendors to dispose of deer carcasses on Interstates, U.S. highways and state highways, no later than two business days after receiving report." And, in parentheses: "CKD contractors remove deer only." Contractors "are not required to pick up deer carcasses on weekends or on holidays".

The contractor does not take a deer in the lane. "Deer carcasses on the road or highway" head the manual's list of what is "not the responsibility of the CKD contractor", so WisDOT's Car-Killed Deer page splits the call: "If the remains are on the active, traveled portion of a highway, call 911. These remains pose an urgent safety hazard." Off the lane: "For interstate, U.S. and state highways, report the location to the local county sheriff department for disposal, using their non-emergency phone number." WisDOT lists no number of its own. The sheriffs' lines sit in a DNR staff directory under "Report car killed deer for pickup" (Milwaukee (414) 278-4766, Dane (608) 266-4948, Brown (920) 391-7450, and so on for all 72 counties). Give the mile post, direction and nearest exit; WisDOT asks for exactly that.

A raccoon or opossum on a state highway is a different matter. "The remains of small animals are not the responsibility of WisDOT CKD contractors"; the manual has maintenance landfill them, bury them or leave them in thick roadside vegetation, with no timeline.

"Counties are responsible for removing deer carcasses on county highways," the manual says, and the public page adds: "For county roads, contact the county." Any letter route, County V in the Fox Valley or County Q through the Kettle Moraine, is the county highway department's.

What counties publish is thinner than what the state assigns them. Only Eau Claire County states a policy, in its Highway FAQ: "the Eau Claire County Highway Department does not remove deer carcasses unless they are a hazard to the traveling public. If the deer carcass is a safety hazard for drivers, the carcass will be moved to the ditch or side of the road to decompose." Brown County's highway services page reads "Please check back for Services." The other seven counties screened publish no carcass wording on their highway pages. That is absence, not refusal; call the highway department and ask.

Wis. Stat. § 59.54(21) is the statute people cite. A county board "may remove any dead animal, for burial or disposition at public expense, found upon public or private property within the county", and the cost "may be recovered by the county from the owner of the carcass, if the owner is known." It permits. No county screened publishes that it does.

Beyond "Towns, villages and cities are responsible for removing deer carcasses on their local roads," there is no state rule for city streets. Below that line the nine answers scatter: one city sends a crew to the terrace after 3 PM, one wants a deer dragged to the boulevard before it will come, and one has nothing on the subject at all.

Milwaukee. The DNS Animal Removal page: "Dead animals, including road kill, are picked up by DPW Sanitation either at the curb, in street or wrapped in plastic and placed in cart." Call 414-286-CITY (2489). The ordinance behind it, MCO 79-2-5, covers "SMALL DEAD ANIMALS found in the public right-of-way"; "small" is undefined and deer is never named.

Madison. City Engineering: "City crews will come to pick up dead animals after 3 PM, Monday through Friday," by the Report a Problem form or 608-266-4430, and "Keep in mind that City crews cannot go onto private property." Its three options are the terrace, the trash container, or "Hire a private company to remove and dispose of the animal from your property." Car-killed deer on local streets have a separate form; that contractor "has 3 days from notification".

Green Bay. No dead-animal service appears on the pages reviewed: Animal Control, Public Works, Garbage, Street and Sign Maintenance, and the GB Services portal, which has no animal category. WisDOT's manual makes local roads the city's; the Street Section line is 920-448-3535. Animal Control says of wildlife: "you will need to contact a wildlife removal service or pest control for assistance."

Kenosha. Public Works: "To report street debris, including animal carcasses/road kill, or to report barricade issues, please contact the Street Division at 262-653-4070", weekdays 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nothing is published for private property.

Racine. Public Health: "Animals, domestic or wild, killed on the roadway report to the City of Racine Department of Customer Service (262-636-9171)." Everywhere else the resident does it: "Deceased animals, if they must be moved, should be safely handled using tools (e.g. shovel) and gloves then placed into a garbage bag and deposited into a solid waste container."

Appleton. Municipal Code Sec. 15-33(i): "Small dead animals shall be collected by the Department. Animals must be placed in a disposable bag." That sentence lives only in the code; no resident page, form or phone number repeats it, and Sec. 12-28 makes a carcass not buried or disposed of "within twenty-four (24) hours after death" a public health nuisance.

Oshkosh. Sanitation's online Animal Remains Removal Request: "Use this form to notify the Sanitation Dept. of animal remains in public areas, road ways, terrace, etc." The police FAQ gives the Street Department, (920) 236-5380, and adds: "Oshkosh Police Department will NOT remove wild animals from residences; a private pest control service should be contacted."

Eau Claire. The SeeClickFix Streets category covers "debris or animal carcasses in the right-of-way"; Community Services is 715-839-4963. For deer: "the City will retrieve the deer if it's on the boulevard. If a deer dies in your yard, please place it on a plastic tarp and drag it to the boulevard for pickup. The City will not go on to your property to retrieve a deer." Ordinance 8.32.090(C) puts carcasses on the list of wastes a licensed hauler handles only as state and federal law allow.

La Crosse. The city's 311 knowledge base, as archived in February 2026 (the live page now returns "Page Not Found"): "If wildlife is on a roadway within the city limits of La Crosse, contact our Street Department at (608) 789-7340." A dog or cat found dead on the street goes to dispatch, 608-782-7575. Small wildlife "can be bagged up and disposed of in your garbage cart." Deer are not mentioned.

None of the nine calls its service free, none says a crew enters a yard, and only Madison publishes when a pickup happens.

The DNR answers this more plainly than any city. Its sick-or-dead-deer page: "in most cases, the department does not have the resources to remove dead animals, including deer." Its wildlife health page: "To dispose of a wild animal carcass, use gloves or an inverted plastic bag to move it and either bury the carcass on your property or double-bag it in a garbage bag and place it in your trash. Do not handle dead wildlife with your bare hands."

Check the cart rule first. Milwaukee, Madison, Racine and La Crosse say a bagged small animal may go in; Eau Claire's ordinance lists carcasses among the wastes a licensed hauler handles only under state and federal law, without saying what a resident may bag; La Crosse County's 2026 permit guidelines list "Animal Remains" as unacceptable at the facility that receives the city's carts, which neither page reconciles. The disposal guide goes city by city.

Two things that are not a pickup. Wis. Stat. § 95.50 covers "a livestock animal or other domestic animal" and forbids leaving one "exposed to access by dogs or wild animals" beyond 24 hours April to November or 48 hours December to March; it is a livestock and pet rule, not a wildlife deadline. And animal control: MADACC in Milwaukee, Public Health Madison & Dane County, Oshkosh police and Green Bay Animal Control each publish that wildlife is not theirs, live or dead.

So the owner arranges it: gloves and a bag for a squirrel where the city allows it, or an independent operator for a deer, a skunk, a raccoon under the deck, or anything in a crawl space. Any private-property work in Wisconsin would be performed by an independent operator, if one is available for the address. Availability is checked on the call; the price depends on the animal, where it is, access and disposal, and is quoted on the call. See dead animal in the yard.

First, a car-killed deer can be claimed. DNR: "Any person may claim a deer, bear or turkey that has been accidentally killed by a motor vehicle. The driver of a vehicle that collides with and kills a deer, bear or turkey has first priority to the carcass." The condition: "Register your vehicle-killed deer or turkey prior to possessing or removing the deer or turkey from the scene," online through Go Wild or by phone at 608-267-7691, the DNR law-enforcement non-emergency line. The statute is Wis. Stat. § 29.349(2). It is a possession rule, not a removal service.

Second, a deer that dies on your land is yours. DNR's carcass page: "Landowners who are looking to dispose of a dead deer on their property can bury it on their property, utilize a deer carcass waste dumpster if during the fall season, leave it where it lays or contact their local municipality to request it to be picked up (this is not guaranteed)." Deer carcasses are solid waste under § 289.01(33), and the DNR recommends not moving a whole carcass outside the county or adjacent county. Deer collisions cluster in the rut, October into December, and around the gun deer season in late November. The deer guide has the CWD rules and the fall dumpsters; dead deer removal is the private-property page.

The honest list of what no Wisconsin source states, so this page does not either.

• A WisDOT carcass hotline, online form or 511 category. None is published, and the manual sends WisDOT staff to the Region Maintenance Supervisor for the current list of contractors rather than publishing it.
• Who removes a deer lying in a travel lane on a state highway after the 911 call. The manual excludes the contractor and names nobody.
• Response times. WisDOT's two business days covers deer on state highways only. Madison's "after 3 PM, Monday through Friday" and its three-day deer contractor are the only city timings published; no county publishes one.
• What "small" means. Milwaukee's ordinance and Appleton's both turn on the word and neither defines it, so whether a deer or a large dog on a city street is in scope is not established.
• Whether any of it is free. No agency page uses the word, and none states a price either way. Free is not inferred from silence here.
• Private property, at every level of government. The only guidance is the DNR's bury-or-bag instruction, which is why the last rung of the ladder is the owner.