- Hello Jeff - Here is one way to kill two birds with one
stone. 1. Send deer meat from heavily CWD infested Wisconsin to feed
the poor, and 2. Fund the CWD testing of deer. Does this make any sense?
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- The deer being donated is from the CWD management zones.
Sure, the deer will be 'tested' but we also know how long the deer
heads sit on shelves waiting to be tested. So, do the food pantries get
the meat before the testing...and then people are notified they ate infected
meat? Or, do people get year (or more) old meat (testing often takes
that long) after testing is completed?
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- From the assinine to the sublime.
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- Patty
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- Opportunities To Donate Venison Abound
- By Jerry Davis
- For the State Journal
- 11-27-8
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- Editor's note: Backtag, a column chronicling aspects
of Wisconsin's nine-day gun deer season, will appear daily through the
end of the season Nov. 30.
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- More people are now able to say they have eaten Wisconsin
venison.
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- Deer hunters all over Wisconsin have an easy method of
donating extra deer to an area food pantry this year, at no cost to the
hunter, and no cost to the person who eventually gets the meat.
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- Of course hunters can gift an entire unprocessed deer
to anyone they wish, provided the deer has been legally registered. It
then becomes the responsibility of the recipient to get the deer that processed.
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- In southern Wisconsin a special pantry program, Target
Hunger, was put in place this fall to help collect and distribute ground
venison to area food pantries where it could be picked up by consumers.
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- The remainder of the state has a similar program, but
Target Hunger is a little more elaborate because the deer come from the
Chronic Wasting Disease Management Zone and must be tested before the ground
venison enters the food chain.
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- In recent years, hunters were asked to make donations
which would help offset the testing the deer for CWD and to pay for some
of the processing. This year fund drives were organized to get major donors,
not hunters, to provide money to handle and process up to 2,000 deer.
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- As soon as a hunter has registered a deer, some cases
even at the registration and sampling station, the hunter leaves the deer,
which is then transported to a local processing plant.
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- With each donation, the hunter received a hat pin and
is entered into a lottery for prizes, including a pheasant hunt, fishing
trip and tree stand.
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- The processing plant calls a manager at one of the local
food pantry distribution centers saying there is a batch of venison that
has been ground and frozen. More importantly, the venison has passed the
test and did not come from deer that were infected with chronic wasting
disease. The testing is done by the State of Wisconsin, in the same Madison
laboratory where hunters' deer are tested for CWD.
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- In other parts of Wisconsin, testing for CWD is not conducted
on the deer because the disease is not present.
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- The pantry distribution center gets the meat to their
local pantries, which then begins to distribute it to customers.
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- The pantries are required to post a CWD advisory and
a lead metal advisory in the pantry stores for their customers to read,
but CWD has never been shown to jump the species barrier naturally from
deer to humans, and for that matter not to any other animal species.
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- Chris Brockel, division manager at Food and Gardens in
the Madison area says that they do the best to ensure the venison is distributed
equitably to all pantries who want to have it available for their participants.
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- In addition, most counties try to distribute the venison
that originated in that county to participants in that county.
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- There are several positives from this program. People
in need of animal protein are able to receive it. Hunters can feel good
about donating to people in need. The size and health of the deer herd
is improved because there are fewer deer on the landscape.
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- http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/sports/outdoors/316131
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- <mailto:sivadjam@mhtc.net>sivadjam@mhtc.net
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- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural
Economics Univ of West Indies Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at: <http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php>http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php
Also my new website: <http://drpdoyle.tripod.com>http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/
Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
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