Sen. Steele SB 614 concerning the Sportsman’s Benevolence Fund. Currently when a hunting license is sold, the licensee is given the option of donating a dollar to the Sportsman’s Benevolence Account. Under this legislation, the additional dollar would be mandatory.
The money goes to offsetting the cost of processing wild game donated by the hunter to feed the hungry. Money would go to eligible food assistance providers and, in turn, to meat processors. This bill would also direct the Dept. of Natural Resources to develop rules including guidelines for the recording of and accounting for expenditures for each animal processed, including the following information about the harvesting hunter, information about the food assistance providers who will be distributing meat directly or coordinating its distribution, information about the meat processor, the cost of processing the meat, the net weight of the meat, and the county “where the deer harvest occurs, meat is processed, and distribution is made to the public.” (I wonder if it has to be a deer harvest or if other kinds of meat will be involved.)
If they include road-kill possum it could be like the loaves and fishes!
At present, DNR administratively only allows the funds to be used for harvesting deer, although the statute doesn’t specify. Some organizations who receive the funds also raise private dollars to pay for processing of other wild game and domestic animals for donation to food banks and pantries.
Thanks for the background!
Years ago a deer ran into my husband’s are while he was driving on a well-traveled rural road. The traffic backed up behind him while the sheriff deputy had to come and shoot the deer. A women jumped out of her car and approached my husband and asked him if he “wanted” the deer. Surprised, he said “No!”. She then ran to the deputy and said the driver gave her the deer, called her husband and told him to bring the truck. Ick.
Why “ick”? The deer was just killed, it had not been dead long enough for anything gross to occur.
In other words, why is a deer killed by a car more gross than one killed by a bullet?
Because the ones killed by bullets are “ick”, too. Little Bambi and all that…
I’d take the deer, I’d need the venison to offset the grocery money that would have to go towards the insurance deductible…
Sorry for my inarticulate expression. Well, it took a while for the sheriff to show up to shoot the deer, so it had spent that time flailing around in the road, trying to stand on 2 broken legs, etc., etc. Poor animal did suffer considerable physical pain and spiritual terror, and it was very sad to witness. I also couldn’t imagine dressing that carcass, although I had eaten wild venison when I was a child.