Behind the Badge - Just How Fast Were You Driving that Combine?
Just How Fast Were You Driving that Combine?
District Game Warden Alan Howard
As a game warden in North Dakota, you get to see multiple things that just are not believable until you actually see it.
We deal with a lot of different big game animals throughout the state including white-tailed deer, mule deer, pronghorn, elk, moose and bighorn sheep.
Unfortunately, a number of these animals get hit by vehicles and are killed or badly injured to where they have to be dispatched.
Occasionally a person wants a permit to possess a road-killed animal, which are issued by a game warden, highway patrol officer or a sheriff’s department deputy.
The permits are free, you just need to obtain one to possess the animal before it being picked up.
While I was working in the Minot area a local farmer who I knew called me and said he had hit a moose with his combine and it had died.
He wanted to know if he could get a possession permit for the animal.
I asked him how fast he was driving his combine on the highway or gravel road.
He said he was actually combining corn at the time of the accident.
Stunned, I asked him how fast he was combining corn.
He started laughing and said with these new combines you can actually run them fairly fast.
He said by the time he saw the bull moose laying in the corn, it was too late to stop and caught the bull’s antlers in his header and broke the skull cap of the animal killing it instantly.
He said by the time he could stop he dragged the animal about 10 feet.
I responded to the area to meet with the farmer.
He and his farm crew were able to pull the moose out of his header, broken antlers and all.
I issued him a permit for the moose for him to salvage the meat.
In 25 years of working in the state, I now know of three moose that were killed by a combine in the field while harvesting corn.
You just never know what the next call will be.