By county
Washington dead animal rules, county by county
8 jurisdictions, chosen because they answer the same question differently rather than because they are the largest. One collects a big carcass from your yard, one publishes that its crews cannot come onto private property, and one tells you to call a wildlife control operator.
No operator coverage is confirmed in any of them. These pages exist to tell you what your local government publishes, including where that is better than you would expect.
Seattle
Puget Sound · 823,400 residents
The one Washington city that will collect a large carcass from private property, and the one where the 15-pound line decides everything.
Read the rule →King County
Puget Sound · 2,424,700 residents
Outside Seattle, King County's only codified pickup reaches an owner's dog or non-feral cat, for a fee. Wildlife goes to the state.
Read the rule →Spokane
Eastern Washington · 570,600 residents
County road crews take wildlife from the right-of-way and say plainly they will not come onto private property. The animal service handles domestic animals only.
Read the rule →Pierce County
South Puget Sound · 967,000 residents
Tacoma and the unincorporated county leave private property to the owner, while Lakewood publishes an unusual exception for wildlife.
Read the rule →Snohomish County
North Puget Sound · 879,700 residents
No countywide carcass collection. Everett advertises some removal of deceased animals without defining it, and everything else falls to the owner.
Read the rule →Clark County
Southwest Washington · 550,000 residents
Vancouver codifies a fifteen-pound ceiling on what you can bin, the county takes wildlife from county roads, and private property is the owner's.
Read the rule →Yakima County
Central Washington · 265,775 residents
The city tells residents with nuisance wildlife to contact a wildlife control operator, and the county code puts the carcass on the property owner.
Read the rule →Tri-Cities
Southeast Washington · 329,100 residents
Richland publishes the clearest private-operator referral in Washington, naming back yards and under decks as the places a paid operator covers.
Read the rule →Not listed here? Washington has sixty-seven counties and several hundred municipalities, and most publish nothing at all on this. Where your county is silent, that is silence rather than permission or refusal, and the general guide is the better starting point.