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You may hear little of it, but Idaho’s nearly 4-year-old law that allows people to salvage roadkill is surprisingly popular.

According to an online data base maintained by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, more than 4,800 animals have been salvaged from the state’s roadways since the law took effect. That includes 1,996 whitetail deer, 1,405 mule deer, 798 elk and 308 moose.

(Taking roadkill home to dine on is illegal in Washington.)

Salvaging roadkill is most popular in the Panhandle region, where 1,803 animals have been recovered. The Southwest region comes in second with 634 salvages, the Clearwater region is third at 521, followed by the Magic Valley with 480, upper Snake 478, Southeast 447 and the Salmon Region with 356.

“There is lots of folks taking advantage of it all across the state in all of the regions on all of the highways,” said Gregg Servheen of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game at Boise. “We have like 31,000 roadkill records (in the database). Of those, maybe we have 15 percent that are salvaged.”