Moose carcasses up for grabs

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, May 20 (UPI) -- Some Alaska homeowners stuck with dead moose in their yards have offered the carcasses on-line to anyone who wants to haul them away.

Calvin Hay said he got about 50 responses when he put his dead moose up for grabs on Craigslist on May 8, the Anchorage Daily News reported. Unfortunately, by the time he realized the responses were stuck in his spam filter he had already paid $180 to haul the carcass to the dump.

Hay said he assumed that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game would remove the 300-pound yearling when it died in his yard. When he called the agency, he discovered the rotting moose was his problem.

"I kind of joked around a little bit," he said. "I said, wait a minute, aren't you the guys that say moose are, like, natural resources and they belong to all of us, but now that it's dead, it belongs to me?"

Rick Sinnott of Fish and Game said that moose that die of known causes -- being hit by a car, for example -- can be eaten and the department has a giveaway program. He said that giving away an inedible moose is risky because the takers could eat the meat, get sick and sue.