Methodology
How the research was done
This site answers one question for Mississippi: when an animal dies, whose job is it? The answer is spread across state law, several agencies and dozens of local codes. This page explains how those were read, and where the answers run out.
Four research files
The site was written from research compiled on 5 October 2026, in four parts:
- Wildlife law. How Mississippi classes the animals this site covers, the permits MDWFP issues for live wildlife, and how state and federal law protect birds.
- Waste, health and licensing. The Board of Animal Health's carcass and bird-flu rules, MDEQ's solid waste rules and facility list, the State Department of Health's rabies guidance, the Department of Agriculture and Commerce's licensing, and who handles state highways.
- Deer and chronic wasting disease. MDWFP's 2026-2027 CWD Management Zones, the carcass transport rule in the administrative code, MDWFP's reporting request and its guidance for hunters.
- Local government. What the larger cities and counties publish about a dead animal on a road and on private property, read from each code and website.
How each source was read
City codes were read on Municode, the code host each of these cities links to, section by section. Agency pages and PDFs were read on the agency's own site. Where the official state code site would not load, statute text was read in bills filed in the Legislature, which reproduce the existing section; the in-force wording could not be confirmed against the official code, and the source line says so. A few sections were located through a secondary copy and are not quoted. Every finding was recorded with the words quoted, the address and the date.
No agency was contacted for this version. Everything on the site comes from published text, so where a page is silent, the site says "the pages we reviewed do not say" rather than guessing.
Which places were read
The local research covered Mississippi's larger cities and counties. Five places have their own page because their codes or websites say something specific: Jackson, Madison County, DeSoto County, Gulfport and Biloxi, Hattiesburg. 5 more cities, Vicksburg, Meridian, Greenville, Oxford, Columbus, set out a rule in their codes and are summarised on the locations page. Rankin, Hinds and Harrison counties and the city of Tupelo were read too, and the pages reviewed do not set out a dead-animal route. Searches of the Brandon, Pearl, Ocean Springs, Clinton and Horn Lake codes turned up no city pickup route, and those cities' service pages were not read. Places not listed were not surveyed, or were only partly searched.
What decides a location page
A location page needs something specific and checkable to say: a code section, a county service list or a phone line the government publishes. A place where the research found only silence does not get a page, because a page built on silence would say the same thing as every other page.
Where the answers stop
Some questions could not be settled from published text, and the site does not answer them: whether a licence is needed to remove dead animals, how MDWFP's CWD transport rule applies to a deer found dead on private property, whether collecting a dead wild bird for disposal falls under the state's possession rules, and which landfills accept carcasses. The sources page lists these with the reasons, alongside every source and the date it was read.
Keeping it current
Codes are amended and agency pages change. Each page shows the date its sources were read, and a page is revised when a source it relies on changes. If you spot something out of date, the editorial policy explains how to report it.