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Roadkill bill advances to House floor Tuesday May 23, 2017 at 3:25 PM May 24, 2017 at 8:27 AM Mark Freeman Mail Tribune @MTwriterFreeman Roadkill cuisine is one vote and one signature away from a grill near you. A bill that would allow Oregonians to salvage road-killed deer and elk cleared an important hurdle Tuesday in Salem. Senate Bill 372 passed unanimously out of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee and will head to the full House for a vote. The bill would require the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission to create a wildlife-salvage permit program so people could salvage meat from deer and elk accidentally killed as the result of a collision. Any antlers on male roadkill would have to be surrendered to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the bill calls for roadkill processing only for human consumption. If it passes the House and Gov. Kate Brown signs it, Oregon would join 20 other states that allow salvaging of road-killed animals, said state Sen. Bill Hansell, the bill's chief sponsor, who has become known as "Roadkill Bill" Hansell as he has shepherded the measure through the Senate and now to the House floor. "We've had a lot of fun with it, but it's a good bill," Hansell said. A floor vote has not been scheduled, and Hansell said a log-jam of bills awaiting action on the House floor has slowed several bills so far this session. It passed the full Senate unanimously in April.  Hansell, from the town of Athena outside of Pendleton, said he has noticed large numbers of road-killed deer and elk in his area and wanted to find a way to tap into this red-meat resource. Hansell said the Oregon Department of Transportation receives about 6,000 reports of road-killed deer and elk annually. In the past, state biologists and fish and wildlife officers have been wary of allowing roadkill salvage, saying it gives poachers an incentive not to swerve to miss deer and could give them new tactics to hide their wildlife thievery. Hansell, however, said he believes the bill, if passed, would not increase poaching and not lead to intentional dent-to-dine on Oregon roadways. — Reach Mail Tribune reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MTwriterFreeman.