Posted: 11.03.2010

The Wisconsin DNR will once again be accepting venison donations during the hunting season. And this program doesn’t cost anything to the hunters, except the cost of transporting the deer. Since the program began in 2000, over 73,000 deer have been processed into over 3.3 million pounds of ground venison. There are programs all across the state which are willing to take your donations – a total of 140 meet processors that represent 65 counties will be participating this year. 

Hunters, you can help feed needy people throughout Wisconsin this fall by taking 5 simple steps:

• Donate any legally harvested deer taken outside the Chronic Wasting Disease Zone by dropping it off at a participating processor by January 10, 2011. Deer taken outside the CWD Zone are registered with a silver metal tag. Only silver tagged deer may be donated to this program.
• Field dress the deer and register it at a Wisconsin DNR registration station prior to donating the deer.
• Call First! Contact one of the participating processors before dropping the deer off to verify the processor has space to accept your deer.
• Donate the entire deer to receive the processing for free. (Head and/or antlers may be removed for mounting.)
• When dropping your deer off at a processor, please sign the simple log sheet indicating your desire to donate the deer. We’ll do the rest. The donated deer will be processed and the venison will be distributed to charitable organizations to help feed Wisconsin’s needy.

Get all the details on how you can help the Target Hunter and Hunt for the Hungry program by clicking here.

« back to news articles