Free Untamed: The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island by Will Harlan

bank.
    “Look, Dad. I caught us dinner.”
    He frowned. “It’s a sucker fish. We can’t eat that.”
    Later, she was told not to eat mullet. Only blacks eat mullet, her father said.
    Carol was confused: why could you eat some fish and not others? There was no discernible difference in health or taste. The rules were arbitrary and absurd.
    “Human stigmas around food are absolutely nuts. What difference is there between a cow and horse? Pig and dog? We eat millions of cows raised in confinement, standing in their own excrement, and ignore the abundance of wild meat all around us.”
    Carol rarely hunted. There was no need to spend hours hunting squirrels when freshly killed ones could be found freely around every bend in the road. Deer, possum, and coon carcasses were also plentiful along country highways. Even dead birds were morsels of nutrition.
    Carol had shot her first animal—a sparrow—when she was ten years old. She had heard it rustling the leaves, scratching and pecking for grubs in the forest floor. She crept closer, sighted the bird in the crosshairs of her BB gun, and pulled the trigger. The gun popped. Four other sparrows burst from the brush and flapped away. Her sparrow tumbled and was still, shot squarely through the sternum.
    “Instantly it felt wrong,” Carol recalled. “ ‘Why did I do this?’ I asked myself. Nobody taught me that feeling. It was just built-in. I think it’s that way for most people—though maybe not all. I had taken life unnecessarily, and instinctively I felt remorse.”
    The best way to alleviate her guilt, she decided, was to make use of the bird. So she skinned it and cooked it over a campfire, whispering thanks before tasting its tender, mild, juicy flesh.
    “Eating an animal is a kind of communion with nature,” Carol explained. “I know it sounds trite, but I feel more connected to the web of life by honoring animals and making them a part of me. Their death is not wasted.”
    For Carol, dead on the road specimens—which she abbreviated D.O.R.—were especially valuable both nutritionally and scientifically. Wild meat was far tastier and healthier, free from the synthetic hormones and antibiotic injections of factory farms. Roadkill also provided free specimens for scientific study. Carol had taught herself advanced anatomy from D.O.R. specimens.
    Bones especially fascinated her. There was a bone in the heart of a deer, she discovered, and many mammals—including dogs and raccoons—have a bone in their penis called a baculum. Because penis bones were like specially made keys—unique to each species—Carol used them frequently in identifying specimens. Her collection of bones, skulls, and skins was sought by universities and museums. Nearly all of her specimens were roadkill.
    “I hate to hunt or trap live animals. With D.O.R.s, though, I feel great. I’ve got a wild specimen and I’m putting it to use.”
    She scraped up many gourmet feasts from street meat. She ate braised coon leg adorned with wild-harvested figs and pear slices. Dog was rich and succulent, similar to mutton, but more chewy. Armadillo was mild and—like mushrooms—absorbed whatever seasoning was added. She often cooked and served armadillo meat straight out of the shell. Horse was tender and far better than beef. “I’d prefer horse over cow any day,” she said. Hawk and owl tasted, well, like chicken. She ate a robin once that had been caught and dropped by an eagle. It was fresh, with only puncture wounds, so Carol cooked it over a fire: “It was one delicious breast bite and that’s it.” Woodchuck was sweet and delicious: “It doesn’t get any better for an herbivore.” But she preferred the stronger, gamy taste of carnivores like fox. In nearly all animals, she preferred the tender neck meat to more hunky thigh slabs. Her favorite meat was still raccoon. Second favorite was bobcat, which also had a sharp, tangy flavor. The only animal she wouldn’t eat was domesticated