Homeless Dine on Hunters' Surplus Venison

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Homeless Dine on Hunters' Surplus VenisonBy Michael L. BetschCNSNews.com Editorial AssistantDecember 24, 2001(CNSNews.com) - The National Rifle Association (NRA) is encouraging hunters to donate their spare game meat to feed the homeless, but the charity program has activists from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) all fired up."Hunters for the Hungry" is a service the NRA provides for its members and affiliated organizations. The way hunters participate, according to NRA Communications Manager John Robbins, "is that they shoot a deer, an elk or whatever [and] they find a participating meat processor or butcher."White tail deer meat is most commonly donated to food banks, noted Robbins, followed by mule deer and elk. Robbins said he suspects that "the homeless people have no idea what they're eating sometimes, but I don't think they care either.""There are many groups around the country that are performing this function of sharing their game with the people who need the food." But Robbins noted the NRA doesn't actually run the anti-hunger program itself. "We're just kind of a clearinghouse for the information to put people in contact with local people who will take the meat."The NRA website maintains and provides a list containing the contact information of participating butchers and meat processors for those interested in donating their excess meat. After all, said the NRA Program Coordinator Phil Gairth, "you just can't take the deer to the food bank."And, apparently, donating excess game meat is not as easy or economical as it might seem. "The biggest problem within the program is donations," said Gairth. "You can actually get more animals than the processors can handle and that's because they're limited by the costs."Gairth explained that participating meat processors are responsible for covering the cost of processing. "So, you have to take the animal, the deer, to the processor that's involved with this program, who will then call the local food bank or the local Hunters for the Hungry and then they will distribute it through the food banks."But PETA spokesman Bruce Freidrich believes concerned hunters could "feed a lot more people for significantly less money if they took their hunting license fees and all the money they spent on equipment and beer and everything else and actually helped people who are hungry and homeless, rather than foisting artery-clogging dead animal products on them."Robbins says he recognizes there are anti-hunting factions in the United States, but said none have specifically attacked the Hunters for the Hungry program, until now."I mean, it's feeding hungry people," Robbins remarked. "So, you can't really find too much wrong with that."The best thing about the Hunters for the Hungry program, Robbins commented, is that "if a hunter's freezer is already filled, he can contribute something to people who need it and he can keep on hunting." That, Robbins declared, is a "win-win kind of situation."Friedrich characterized the Hunters for the Hungry Program as "a propaganda ploy to get rid of what they're creating -- which is dead animals -- and to attempt to justify a blood sport."Propaganda ploy? The Safari Club International's "Sportsmen Against Hunger" reports an annual delivery of more than 250 million meals a year to food banks and shelters. All of the meals are prepared with donated game meat.Gairth noted that since the Hunters for the Hungry program began in the early 1990s, five tons of game meat have been donated in Maryland and ten tons in neighboring Virginia.PETA's own efforts to combat hunger in the U.S., according to Freidrich, involved a Thanksgiving outreach event. "Martin Sheen spearheaded our efforts to give Tofurkeys and Native Foods Holiday Wellingtons to homeless shelters around the country." He added that PETA provided the meals to approximately 1,000 people in more than 50 shelters."If their goal was to help homeless people," Freidrich said, "rather than to justify killing animals as a pastime, they could do that far more effectively and provide far more food without going out and blowing animals away." http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200112\NAT20011224a.html