In hungry times, Wisconsin Deer Donation Program celebrates 25 years

COTTAGE GROVE, Wis. (CN) — In the 25 years since Wisconsin first launched a venison donation program, Stoddard’s Meat Market has been processing donated deer meat into burgers for food banks.

Proprietor Jerry Stoddard is proud of the work. But the amount of venison he processes has decreased in recent years, with the Madison, Wisconsin-area shop only handling around 500 pounds of donated meat last year. That comes as hunger rates have risen in the Badger State and nationwide.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources created the Deer Donation Program in 2000 to combat food insecurity across the state. It’s made possible by state law, which allows the department to use licensing funds and donations to reimburse counties for processing and distributing venison.

The checklist for donating deer is fairly straightforward. Hunters must field-dress their deer, preserve them on ice and register them online. 

They can then bring their bag to one of 57 participating meat processors in the state, including Stoddard’s, where the deer are tested for disease and typically ground into venison burgers. From there, the meat is distributed to local food pantries and group homes in need of protein.

Although Wisconsin’s regular gun deer season is just nine days long, that’s plenty of time to hunt the state’s nearly two million deer. In a quarter of a century, hunters have donated more than 98,000 deer or four million pounds of venison, according to Marcus Rufledt, a wildlife program specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Overall, Rufledt said, deer culls are up. In early-count reports, hunters registered 189,622 deer during the 2024 season — a 5% increase from last year’s harvest. But to the dismay of those dedicated to fighting hunger, that growth hasn’t translated into more food for hungry Wisconsinites. That’s due to a range of factors, from the threat of disease to the logistical and bureaucratic challenges of processing and distributing donated deer.

Although partnering meat processors are scattered across Wisconsin, some areas are left uncovered. 

There are no participating processors in Adams County, even though that county led the state in deer bags. Nor are there any in Milwaukee County, the state’s most populous county and home to Milwaukee. Both counties have high rates of food insecurity, according to the Wisconsin Food Security Project, a project of the University of Wisconson–Madison.

Scott, who asked not to use his last name for fear of backlash or retaliation, runs two meat-processing businesses in Milwaukee. One, Buddy’s Meat Market, is a retail store. The other, Richardson Inc., is a wholesale processor. 

In spite of that, Scott says red tape prevents him from participating in the program. “I donate part of my own deer in Monroe County where I hunt, but I can’t process them here because I wouldn’t be allowed to serve a customer in the front while I’m processing a deer in the back,” he said in an interview with Courthouse News. “The state makes the whole thing difficult.”

Some of that red tape is necessary. Chronic wasting disease — a fatal, contagious brain disease without a cure — is ravaging Wisconsin’s deer population. Like mad cow disease, it’s a prion disease, making it a serious potential threat to human diners.

Just like with mad cow disease, CWD both reduces deer populations and can sometimes lead officials to destroy otherwise good meat. And while some participating processors are able to test the glands in a donated deer’s neck for the disease to expedite the process, Rufledt said many others don’t have space to store deer while they wait for results.

“We used to be allowed to test on-site,” Rufledt said — but that’s changed amid concerns over chronic wasting disease. “The DNR set up kiosks now where the hunters have to drop off the heads for testing, and then they bring us a barcode along with the deer. It makes the donation harder, I think, even if the DNR is pretty quick to get us the results.”

All that has translated to less donated deer on dinner tables. In 2021, Stoddard’s Meat Market passed down 1100 pounds to its food pantry distributors. In 2022, the total was down to 900 pounds. Last year, it was just 500.

That’s still a lot of meat, and it can still make a big impact on communities, said Kris Tazelaar, a spokesperson for Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin. But as deer donations go down, hunger continues or is even rising, he said.

“We distributed 26.9 million pounds of food in our last fiscal year, which is the largest amount ever since our organization started in 1986,” Tazelaar said. “Some of our sister food banks are seeing 20-30% increases in utilization.”

Second Harvest isn’t alone in this. In their most recent Hunger Report, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services reports that almost 10% of people in the state are food insecure as of 2022, compared to about 12.8% nationwide that year. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says food insecurity nationwide rose significantly in 2023 — a problem that particularly affects low-income households or those living in food deserts. 

In spite of challenges, Tazelaar is thankful for the venison donation program. As he puts it: “Anytime we can provide a nutritious product to those we support, it’s a wonderful thing."

At Stoddard’s Meat Market, much of the donated venison comes from farmers protecting their crops from pesky deer. They shoot as many as they can and donate whatever they can’t eat, Jerry Stoddard said.

If he was a farmer, Stoddard quipped, he’d buy a bigger freezer before giving away his bag. Still, he’s thankful for the venison program and plans to keep participating. “It’s all bureaucracy,” he said, “but it’s a great thing for people.”

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