Before You Move a Dead Wild Animal in Washington

On your own property, yes. WAC 220-400-040 makes it unlawful to possess wildlife found dead, then provides a specific permission: an individual may remove wildlife found dead on property they own or control, or on the adjoining roadway. Before removing it, the rule requires you to notify the Department of Fish and Wildlife or the Washington State Patrol communications office by telephone, and to give your name, address, telephone number and a description of the animal and where it is. The same subsection provides that wildlife removed this way remains the property of the state, and that it may be taken for disposal rather than kept. It is a phone call rather than a permit application, but it is a legal step and it comes first.

No, and the exclusion is written into the statute. RCW 77.08.010 defines wildlife for these purposes and expressly excludes feral domestic mammals and old world rats and mice of the family Muridae. A dead Norway rat in your crawl space and a dead house mouse in your attic are therefore outside the notification rule entirely, which matters because those are the two most common calls in this trade. The exclusion is narrow, though. Squirrels, native mice, raccoons, opossums, birds and bats are all wildlife, and the same statute provides that the bodily parts of wildlife are wildlife too, so a raccoon carcass is still wildlife however long it has been there.

Only in a narrow set of circumstances that has nothing to do with a carcass on your property. Washington operates a salvage permit under WAC 220-400-040 for deer and elk killed by a motor vehicle collision, which is free and applied for after the fact. WDFW states plainly that the salvage rule does not authorize trespassing on private property. The permit exists so somebody can take an animal they want for meat, which is the opposite of the situation where an animal you did not want has died on your ground. If you are reading about salvage while trying to get rid of something, it is almost certainly not the rule you need.

Stop and report it rather than handling it. Eagles, hawks, owls and other migratory birds carry federal protection independent of anything Washington requires, and handling or possessing one is a separate matter from ordinary carcass disposal. Marine mammals on a shoreline are handled through a stranding network rather than by a removal company, and Seattle's own dead-animal intake refuses them outright and refers callers elsewhere. If you are unsure what you are looking at, describing it on the phone to WDFW before touching it is the correct first step and costs nothing.