Roadkill Art launches National Roadkill Day and new book on eating roadkill

Roadkill Art is using Sept. 25 to promote National Roadkill Day, a campaign to reframe roadkill as a legal, sustainable food source. The launch includes a new book, an app and a roadside-to-table message aimed at turning wildlife collisions into recoverable meat instead of waste.

Why it matters: - Roadkill Art is trying to normalize a food source many people overlook. - The campaign argues that recoverable roadkill could reduce waste and put wild meat on more tables. - The message is aimed at non-hunters, who make up most Americans and may not have tried wild game.

What happened: - Roadkill Art launched the 2026 National Roadkill Day observance ahead of Sept. 25. - The launch includes a new book, “Yellow Line Dining: America’s Untapped Wild Food Source, Find It. Cook It. Eat It.” - The book covers roadside safety, wildlife roadkill laws, scene assessment, field processing, transport and wild game cooking. - The book includes 21 recipes. - Roadkill Art also promoted its Roadkill Art App as a tool for finding, reporting and retrieving roadkill.

The details: - The company says the book’s purpose is to replace assumptions about roadkill with knowledge about how to handle it. - National Roadkill Day is intended to start a conversation about recovering roadkill safely, legally and responsibly. - Roadkill Art says fewer people hunt today, while deer populations have grown and roadkill is more available. - The Roadkill Art App connects members nationwide, including in Hawaii and Alaska. - Reports appear instantly in Map View and List View. - A report takes about one minute and alerts other members so someone else can recover the meat legally. - National Roadkill Day is being marked by cooking game-meat recipes and sharing them with first-time wild-meat eaters. - The campaign cites 331.8 million Americans who are not hunters, or 97.1% of the U.S. population. - The release points to venison, bear, wild boar, squirrel and raccoon as examples of wild meat. - The Roadkill Art website includes recipes such as “Yellow Line Blazing Squashed Deer Burgers” and “Granny’s Found Goulash,” a venison stew. - More information and recipes are available at the Roadkill Art recipes page. - Roadkill Art says roadkill is not a separate category of meat because the biology does not change after a vehicle collision. - The release frames roadkill use as a sustainability issue tied to recycling, leftovers and waste reduction. - The release says millions of pounds of healthy wild game are left beside U.S. roads each year. - The release says harvested wild animals require no feed, fencing, irrigation, antibiotics or agricultural land. - Roadkill Art says using suitable roadkill does not increase wildlife collisions. - The group says the available volume is too large to ignore. - The app includes a “Yellow Line Diner” feature where game-meat cooks can share creative roadkill recipes. - The release says tapping the quail icon in Map View opens cooking options for roadkill. - The team plans to cook an original recipe called “Shoulda Stayed in the Swamp Thing on a Bun Grilled BBQ Gator Dog’s.” - The release says alligator is often recovered in 10 southern states: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma. - The release says Florida has more alligator-vehicle collisions because of its large alligator population. - The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service reportedly estimated nearly 5 million alligators in the southeastern U.S. in 2026, including about 1.25 million in Florida. - The campaign says roadkill left to vultures can provide as much as 50 pounds of meat.

Between the lines: - The campaign is not just about a novelty holiday. It is a push to change food norms around wildlife, legality and waste. - The marketing leans on sustainability language and shock value to make roadkill feel less taboo and more practical. - The app, recipes and observance give the effort a community format, not just a one-day stunt. - The emphasis on first-time eaters suggests Roadkill Art is trying to expand the audience beyond existing game-meat consumers.

What’s next: - Roadkill Art is asking people to mark National Roadkill Day through the app and the “Yellow Line Diner.” - The group is encouraging cooks to make and share roadkill-based dishes. - The broader pitch is to keep treating suitable roadkill as a recoverable food resource rather than roadside waste.

The bottom line: - Roadkill Art is turning Sept. 25 into a promotional campaign for a controversial idea: that legally recovered roadkill can be sustainable, edible and worth putting on the table.