Q: If you’re looking for an excuse to write about hunter etiquette again, here’s one.

I just waded into the Boise River at Ann Morrison Park to pull out a white garbage bag. It was full of entrails. I hope, and presume, they were deer entrails.

KEVIN, e-mail

A: Ugh! The Boise River is not a garbage pit where stuff automatically floats downriver and disappears.

Where are these people coming from? Totally clueless.

By the way, this isn’t uncommon during hunting season, according to Idaho Fish and Game.

Officers are investigating an instance in which someone recently threw a whole box of deer scraps in Indian Creek near Kuna.

They find carcasses and parts of animals along roads and in other places.

Basically, it’s littering, and you can get a maximum fine of $300 and six months in jail, said Charlie Justus, regional conservation officer with Fish and Game. The culprits also can get cited for putting a carcass or animal parts in a waterway. Talk about pollution.

If you’re cutting and wrapping your elk or deer at home, just package up the undesirable leftovers in double-wrapped plastic garbage bags and put them in the trash. With the garbage bins and collection system we have now, it’s not a big mess.

Fish and Game says some hunters take the scraps from cutting up a big-game animal way out in the desert on public land, but there’s a problem with that, too.

Often they leave a lot of the litter, such as used paper towels and rags, and that’s littering, of course. Coyotes and magpies will take care of the critter remains, but not the trash.

Still, that is not the preferred way of disposing of a carcass. Just throw it in the garbage for the weekly pickup.

MORE ON BLUE JAYS

Blue jays are more of an annual occurrence in Idaho than we think, even though they are supposed to be rare in this state. (Ask Zimo, Oct. 25).

I wrote about a Boisean spotting one in town a few weeks ago. Since then I’ve gotten emails from readers in McCall and Garden Valley who have seen blue jays.

What’s up? Blue jays show up year round on the eastern side of the Rockies but not in Idaho. They occasionally invade the state, maybe because of lack of food or too much competition in their native territory.

Our native jay is the Stellar’s jay, which is dark blue with a very dark head. The blue jay is blue, white and pale gray.

I had one caller who spotted Stellar’s jays near Vista Avenue in Boise. They aren’t supposed to be in the Valley. They are a mountain bird. Go figure.

Pete Zimowsky: 377-6445, Twitter: @Zimosoutdoors