Wild-Harvested Venison Yields and Sharing by Michigan Deer Hunters

ABSTRACT

An increased societal focus on wildlife as food and recent policy deliberations regarding legal markets for wild-harvested meat are encouraging wildlife managers and researchers to examine the amount, use, and distribution of meat yielded through recreational hunting. We used responses to questions on the Michigan Deer Harvest Study to estimate the maximum yield of edible venison and assess hunters’ sharing behaviors. We estimated 11,402–14,473 metric tons of edible venison were procured during the 2013 hunting season. Of hunters who harvested a deer, 85% shared their venison. Hunters who shared did so with an average of 5.6 people (SD = 4.5). Sharing occurred most frequently within tight social networks: members of hunters’ households (69%), relatives (52%), and friends, neighbors, or coworkers (50%). In the absence of legal markets, venison is distributed widely by hunters and greatly amplifies the number of people benefiting from hunting. Nonetheless, we also identified the potential breadth of exposure to disease or contaminants from wild-harvested meat.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecosystem services
• game meat
• hunting
• meat consumption
• wild-harvested meat

Acknowledgment

We are grateful to B. Frawley for assistance with data collection. S. Hyngstrom improved the manuscript by reviewing an early draft. Permission to access demographic data from license sales and survey responses was given by MDNR and approved by the MSU Human Research Protection Program Social Science/Behavioral/Education Institutional Review Board to ensure the protection of human subjects (IRB #x13-721e).

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

Our research was funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act Grant MI W-155-R, Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Division through the Partnership for Ecosystem Research and Management, Michigan State University through a University Distinguished Fellowship, and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program.