Newark and Licking County, Ohio

Dead animal removal in Newark, Ohio

Carcasses recovered from inside walls, attics and crawl spaces. Pickup from yards, fields and driveways. Deer on private land. And the call where all you have is the smell and finding it is the whole job.

Call 740-726-5070

Inside the city limits, some of this is already covered by ordinance. Check that first before you pay anyone.

Before you pay anyone

Whose job is it

Section 618.14(a) of Newark’s codified ordinances makes it the duty of the Public Service Department’s Division of Streets to remove a dead animal and dispose of it once somebody has told them about it. The wording covers an animal “lying on any public grounds or public way or on any private lot or premises within the City.” A raccoon dead in a back yard is inside that sentence.

Two things temper it. The division’s published list of services runs to plowing, potholes, paving, mowing, leaf pickup and storm drains, and does not mention animals at all, so expect to have to ask for it specifically. And the yard is staffed Monday to Friday, 7:00am to 3:30pm.

Who is responsible for a dead animal, by where it is lying
Where it is	Who handles it	Why
Lying in a Newark city street	Newark Police non-emergency, 740-670-7200	The city directs reports of a deceased animal in the roadway there.
On your lot or in your yard, inside Newark city limits	City of Newark Division of Streets, 740-670-7734	Ordinance 618.14(a) makes removal their duty once they have been told, and it names private lots, not just streets. Weekdays, 7:00am to 3:30pm.
On a county road in Licking County	Licking County Engineer, 740-670-5350	The engineer’s highway department states it is responsible for 412 miles of county highway and 434 bridges.
On a township road	The township trustees	Ohio Revised Code 5535.01 puts township roads with the board of township trustees.
On a state route or I-70	ODOT District 5	ODOT District 5 covers Licking County. Anything sitting in a live traffic lane is a road hazard and worth reporting urgently rather than through a routine form.
Sealed inside a wall, attic, crawl space or chimney	Nobody public	A municipal crew collects what is lying on the ground; getting into a structure is not what they are equipped for. This is a search before it is a removal.
A smell you cannot trace to anything	Nobody public	There is nothing to report and nothing to point at until somebody finds it.
A deer on your own land	Yours to arrange	Burial needs four feet of cover under state law, and inside the city ordinance 618.14(c) rules it out entirely.
Anything visible on your land outside the city limits	Yours to arrange	Ohio Revised Code 941.14 puts disposal on the owner of the premises. There is no Newark ordinance out there.

Sources: Newark Codified Ordinances § 618.14; City of Newark Public Safety and Street Operations pages; Licking County Engineer Highway Department; Ohio Revised Code 941.14 and 5535.01; ODOT district listing. Departments change how they work without announcing it, so confirm anything that matters.

The three situations that ordinance does not reach

A municipal crew collects an animal you can point at, during business hours, once you have reported it. Three situations fall outside that, and they are the ones this line exists for. It books them with an independent removal operator working Newark and the surrounding county, who quotes the job and does the work.

It is inside the structure. A squirrel that died in a soffit or a rat in a wall cavity is not lying on a lot, and no department is going to open a building to get it. Recovering a carcass from inside is a search first and a removal second.

You cannot find it. If all you have is the smell, there is nothing to report and nothing to point at. Tracing it is the work.

You are outside the Newark city limits. Section 618.14 is Newark’s own ordinance and it binds Newark. Beyond the city line, Ohio Revised Code 941.14 puts the animal on the owner of the premises, and burying it yourself means digging four feet down. Whether a particular township or village offers anything of its own is worth one phone call to them before you assume either way. The covered ZIP codes are listed here.

Two more cases come up often enough to name. Deer are heavy, awkward and frequently on the line between private land and road right-of-way, which is why they get their own page. And a visible carcass in a yard or a field is a straightforward pickup when you would rather not wait for a weekday crew or handle it yourself.

Ten hours, by the way

Section 618.14(d) says no one may let a dead animal they owned or had possession of lie on public ground, a street or a private lot longer than ten hours, and 618.14(f) makes a violation a minor misdemeanor. Read strictly, that qualifier points at a pet or a kept animal rather than a wild one that died in your hedge. Section 618.14(c) is the one that catches everybody: no burying a dead animal in your own ground anywhere inside the city.

What happens next

You describe where it is and whether anyone can get to it. You get a price before work starts. Where the animal can be reached, it goes with the operator and is disposed of. The longer version covers what is not guaranteed, which is the part worth reading.

What moves the price is set out separately. No page here publishes a figure, because nobody has seen your job yet.

Newark, Ohio

Describe it and get a number

Where the property is, where on it the animal is, and whether a person can reach it. That is enough to price most jobs on the phone.