Fewer deer hunters means less donated venison is making it to Wisconsin food pantries

In 2022, Wisconsin hunters killed 340,282 deer. Of those, 1,243 — fewer than 1% — were donated to local meat processors that agreed to prepare venison for donation to food pantries.

After reaching a peak in 2006 with nearly 12,000 donations, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ Deer Donation Program has been shrinking since it was established in 2000.

There are just over 50 meat processors statewide participating in the program, meaning some hunters looking to donate might need to cross county lines to find a shop or a drop-off site. Meat processors must be licensed with the state to participate.

"That's definitely a problem we hear about: hunters not having a processor locally that they're able to donate (to), and a lot of them, if it's too far, it might just not be worth it,” said Grace Nugent, a wildlife biologist and the deer donation program administrator.

Hunters might also need to get the carcass tested for chronic wasting disease before donating it, adding another step in the process.

Also relevant to the program's overall health are data showing Wisconsin is seeing a general decline in hunters, meaning there are fewer people who might be willing to donate animals that would otherwise not fit in their freezers.

Still, the deer donation program has been successful in gathering 98,324 deer for donation between 2000 and 2022. That amounts to nearly 4 million pounds of donated venison, according to the DNR.

Jasen Elcombe is a captain with the Salvation Army in Superior. Venison donations provide meat to the local food pantry that often receives donated nonperishables but sometimes has to purchase meat to stock its shelves.

About 60 families use the resource in Douglas County each week, he said.

“When we have the venison donated, that’s a whole lot of meat that we can give to people,” Elcombe said. “I think around here — Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan — everyone just loves venison.”

Trouble finding meat processors

Douglas County has just one meat processor that accepts donated deer: Hursh Meat Processing in Poplar. In a town of just over 600 people, the family-owned shop processes between 1,000 and 1,200 deer annually. This season it has received six deer for processing into 1.25-pound packages for donation.

Jeff Pritzl, the deer program specialist for the DNR, said the venison butchering industry is facing labor shortages. The cost of processing a deer is also rising, he said.

“We’re losing butchers left and right,” he said.

Clyde Hursh is an employee at Hursh Meat Processing, a family business owned by his brother. He said it’s been difficult to find employees, especially after the pandemic. The work itself isn’t difficult, he said, but it is physical.

“It’s a dying art,” he said.

It takes about 30 minutes from start to finish to process a deer for donation, Hursh said. Shops receive either $100 or $110 from the state for each donated deer processed. The higher figure is for animals killed in counties with testing requirements for chronic wasting disease. 

With those repayments, Hursh said, it’s pretty much a break-even exchange. He said it’s important to remember that the program is funded with payments made by the public to the DNR.

“We advertise it here in the shop, but I don’t think it’s advertised enough in the population for people to be aware that this actually does exist," Hursh said.

Chronic wasting disease, testing requirements add extra step to donation process

Chronic wasting disease was first recorded in Wisconsin in 2002, two years after the beginning of the deer donation program.

Today, 40 of 72 Wisconsin counties require testing for either adult deer or adults and fawns before they can be donated. The DNR maintains an online list of free CWD testing sites.

Some meat processors are also DNR testing sites for the infectious prion, but not all. That means hunters wanting to donate a deer might need to drive the deer to a DNR testing site, then take it to a processor to donate the carcass.

Wisconsin sees fewer hunters, but program could help draw younger generations

It was only about 30 years ago that Wisconsin crossed a 1 million deer population statewide, Pritzl said.

“And everybody thought, ‘Holy cow, there can’t be a million deer in the state; that sounds like too many.’ Well, now there’s probably 2 million,” he said.

More deer are born in Wisconsin each year than die, meaning the population will continue to grow past current levels. Hunting is the main way the state manages the population, Pritzl said, but the number of hunters in the state is on the decline. One main reason is because of the aging baby boomer generation. 

In 2022, Wisconsin was home to 606,855 hunters statewide based on unduplicated counts of gun and archery hunters by customer number. That's about 10% of the state’s population, but still 111,581 fewer hunters than in 2000.

In the grand scheme of things, Pritzl said, the deer donation program won’t make much of a dent in hunters' ability of manage the deer population. But the donation program could help draw more new people into hunting, he said, by attracting people who are increasingly concerned about where their food comes from.

Pritzl pointed out that once a hunter harvests a deer, the incentive to put a second one in the freezer drops. He mentioned other ways to use hunting to reduce the population, such as having hunters informally harvest deer for friends and family. A similar program in Monroe County connects members of the public with hunters willing to harvest deer on their behalf.

More: An aging, declining population of hunters spells trouble for Wisconsin deer management

What's next for Wisconsin's deer donation program?

Processors and food pantries can sign up for the program any time before Feb. 1, 2024, when this season’s donation window closes.

Nugent hopes to see the DNR's deer donation program grow by way of recruiting more processors and making the program financially possible for them.

One idea on the table is increasing the per-deer payment, she said. The repayment rate has already increased in the recent past, up from $80 and $90 in 2020.

Overall, she said future goals will focus on making the donation process as smooth as possible for hunters.

“They're already taking so much time out of their day and doing this good deed,” she said.

Cleo Krejci covers higher education, vocational training and retraining as a Report For America corps member based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at CKrejci@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @_CleoKrejci.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Fewer hunters means less venison for Wisconsin food pantries