How to Handle Overpopulated Wildlife in America

One of the pillars of our North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is that we should avoid the commercialization of wildlife and their various parts. After all, it was the unregulated trade in furs, feathers and meat that led to widespread declines in wildlife as America industrialized a century and a half ago.

That prohibition on “market hunting” is the primary reason you don’t find wild venison cutlets in your grocer’s butcher case and why it’s illegal to sell sausage from last season’s elk. There is a lively market for game in America, but almost without exception it’s not wild. The meat is sourced from game farms, where ear-tagged elk, bison and whitetails are treated like Herefords and Holsteins.

But our consensus agreement that we shouldn’t sell wildlife parts is increasingly at odds with reality in many parts of America and with some wildlife species. We simply have too many deer in some communities. We have too many Canada geese that no longer migrate but rather graze on golf courses and in municipal parks. We have too many “wild” turkeys in some neighborhoods, where they roost on porches and scratch expensive cars.

Some municipalities have turned to hunters to help, instituting archery deer seasons in city parks or liberalizing seasons in adjacent suburbs. But most of the spikes in wildlife abundance are in places that don’t allow hunting, resulting in creative—and expensive—animal-removal initiatives. Like in Staten Island, N.Y., where the city council spent $4.1 million sterilizing municipal deer. Or in Iowa City, Iowa, where some 500 deer were shot by trained sharpshooters at a cost of more than $300 per deer.

In most cases, these “surplused” deer are butchered and their meat donated to food banks. But what if licensed hunters could help control nuisance populations of wildlife, and what if hunter-harvested meat could be sold to defray costs of management? Is that a breach of our self-imposed (and often legislature-imposed) prohibition on market hunting?

The topic has been broached a few times. In 2011 the Wildlife Society Bulletin, a peer-reviewed scientific quarterly, published “Regulated Commercial Harvest to Manage Overabundant White-Tailed Deer: An Idea to Consider.” The authors, seven well-respected wildlife professionals, urged the creation of pilot projects to learn the parameters of commercialization, but few of their suggestions were taken seriously by wildlife managers, let alone implemented.

In many cases, laws would have to be revised to allow wildlife parts to be sold. But there are some interesting precedents that are worth watching as we consider creative ways to manage nuisance wildlife. One is Vermont, which retains a 1961 law on its books that forbids licensed hunters to “sell big game or the meat of big game within the State except during the open season and for 20 days thereafter.” That means for about 75 days Green Mountain State hunters can make a market of their venison. Few do, either because they’re unaware of the law’s allowance or because, like most of us, they cherish their hard-won venison as a prize they intend to feed their own families.

AXIS ABUNDANCE

On the Hawaiian island of Maui, where axis deer were introduced 150 years ago and have far exceeded the island’s fragile habitat, hunters have been given permission by state and federal authorities to harvest deer, butcher them in USDA-approved mobile facilities, and then package and sell the meat. The most visible of the outfits making a business on the overabundant deer is Maui Nui Venison, which sells wild meat to the mainland through direct-to-consumer channels.

Hunting is done at night, by trained shooters using thermal optics, to “make the process stress-free for the deer,” says the company. Federal inspectors accompany hunters in the field, and a USDA veterinarian inspects carcasses to ensure they’re safe for consumption.

Success in building a commercial market for Maui’s axis meat has led to the approval of a mobile processing unit on the nearby island of Lanai. The refrigerated unit allows for quick cooling and processing of hunter-killed deer. Distribution channels aren’t as mature on Lanai, where most of the certified axis venison is sold to island-based distributors, including the luxury Four Seasons resort.

FROM TRIMMINGS TO TREATS

Most of the prohibitions on the sale of wildlife are designed to both protect consumers’ food supplies and to disincentivize poaching and other shady meat-procurement practices. Few laws speak to the idea of using wildlife parts for non-human consumption. It’s an allowance that a new Utah company, Mountain Wild Pet, is using to establish a business in wildlife-sourced dog treats. The company contracts with certified butchers to buy trimmings, bones and other byproducts of legally harvested elk, deer and other Rocky Mountain big game, which it then renders into bite-sized nuggets and thick jerky squares that are marketed as premium dog treats in pet stores nationwide. Last winter the company lobbied Utah’s legislature to pass legislation allowing the practice, and in April the state’s governor signed the bill into law.

“We’ve had widespread support from the state’s Division of Wildlife Resources, from regulators, and from every hunter and non-hunter we talked to,” says Mike Luper, CEO of Mountain Wild. “The bill [approving the use of wildlife parts in the pet-food trade] passed unanimously.”

Part of the appeal of the Mountain Wild business model is that the company is repurposing wildlife parts that would otherwise add to landfill burdens and contribute to planet-warming greenhouse emissions. A recent study reported that decaying biomass produces nearly 10 times the amount of greenhouse gases than non-organic garbage. “Last year, working with a single butcher, we saved 35 tons of meat and bones that would have ended up in a landfill,” says Luper. “The butchers like it, because we’re paying them for material that they’d have to pay to dispose of. And the product is healthy and naturally organic.”

Mountain Wild supports hunters who often claim the entire animal that they kill—from tongue to tail—is used for some beneficial purpose. But does the business incentivize wildlife waste?

“The Utah law is very explicit in what’s allowed in our products,” says founder Eric Montague. “Companies like ours are allowed to use this specific, non-human consumable leftover from a licensed commercial butchery with a certain fraction of an inch of trim with legally, ethically harvested animals. It’s written so narrowly that we couldn’t take a whole elk and drop it in our production. Our supply has to come from a licensed butcher that is certified by the state and uses a non-human consumable remnant. We literally are … converting what would normally be waste into a tasty, healthy product that can sustain our favorite non-human companions.”

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• This article was featured in the October 2024 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe.

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