WORLAND — Thanks to some generous youthful hunters, more than 400 pounds of venison was delivered to three food banks in the area last week with more to be delivered this week.

As part of the Food from the Field program, Wyoming Game and Fish Game Warden Matt Lentsch gathered some youth together to go hunting and donate the meat to help families in the southern Big Horn Basin.

According to the state website, “What do you get when you pair a great love of hunting with a passion for helping those in need? Food from the Field, an innovative program to help our most vulnerable neighbors in Wyoming! Now in its second year, Wyoming Hunger Initiative, the Wyoming Game & Fish Department, Wyoming Department of Agriculture, and participating processors work together to streamline game meat donation to food pantries statewide.

“We invite hunters to make a financial contribution to cover the cost of processing if they’re able; Wyoming Hunger Initiative will cover the remaining cost.

“Wyoming’s majestic landscapes offer hunters some of the best opportunities in the world; Food from the Field enables them to share that bounty by donating all or part of their meat to participating local processors who in turn will prepare it for local organizations to distribute to our neighbors in need.

“All deer, elk, and moose will undergo appropriate [chronic wasting disease] testing to ensure safety prior to entering the food bank system.”

In its first year, according to Wyoming Hunger Initiative Northwest Regional Director Caitlin Youngquist, there were only two meat processors participating statewide. This year there are seven participating including Paintrock Processing in Hyattville and Wapiti Meats in Wapiti.

All meat harvested in and around Washakie County was taken to Paintrock Processing.

Youngquist said the carcass is take to the processor, who then sends a sample for CWD testing. If the test comes back negative the meat is processed into hamburger. If it is positive the meat is thrown away and not distributed.

According to the Wyoming Game and Fish, “chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a chronic, fatal disease of the central nervous system in mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, and moose. CWD belongs to the group of rare diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). These disorders are caused by abnormally folded proteins called ‘prions.’”

Last Wednesday, Dec. 15, youth hunters and members of the Washakie County 4-H Roadrunners Club gathered to deliver some of the processed meat.

Lentsch said there were 53 pounds donated to the Washakie Ministerial Association and 106 pounds to Bethany Fellowship for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and 200 pounds to River of Life Church in Thermopolis the TEFAP site in Hot Springs County.

Lentsch said 53 pounds would be delivered to the Basin food pantry with an additional up to 90 pounds as they were waiting on CWD test results on three more deer, which amounts to about 30 pounds per deer.

With the additional deer they will have donated about 500 pounds in Hot Springs, Washakie and Big Horn counties for the Food from the Field program.

YOUNG HUNTERS CARE

The majority of the deer donated this year were harvested by youth participating in the Young Hunters Care program (through the Paintrock Hunter Mentor Program and Washakie County 4-H). Additionally, one adult with a disability participated in the harvest.

Tags were paid for by the Wyoming Game Warden’s Association and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

Lentsch said he has been working with youth in the Paintrock Hunter Mentor Program since 2000. They began the Young Hunters Care Program in 2005 where doe/fawn deer licenses would be purchased and the meat donated to families in the area. He said most of the time, up until this year, they would handle the processing on their own, which meant it could not be donated to food banks.

This year with the Wyoming Hunger Initiative’s Food from the Field in its second year, he and the youth realized it was an opportunity to help even more people.

He said he had a landowner who had submitted some damage claims on his corn field due to the deer. Once a claim is submitted to get assistance the landowner has to allow hunting in the area so that is where they went this year, south of Worland.

He said they wanted to “kill enough deer to make a dent on that population” that was causing the field damage.

The goal was 20 deer and they were able to harvest 22.

As of last Friday there were three that came back positive with CWD and as of Monday they were waiting on results for just one more deer.

“That’s a lot lower [CWD number] than what I thought it would be,” Lentsch said, noting that areas south of Worland are some of the worst for CWD.

As of Friday they had 409 pounds of deer meat processed.

“We were hunting primarily whitetail,” Lentsch said, adding that the season ended on Dec. 15.

In addition to the 12 youth hunters he took out for the Food From the Field, Lentsch also took out Eric Holdeman, who is in a wheelchair. He said he has taken Holdeman out for regular hunts but this year he was able to go out more than once and hunt for the Food From the Field program.

In addition to the hunts for Food From the Field, Lentsch noted he took youth on four elk hunts and six deer hunts as part of the mentor program.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Warden’s Association and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation have been supporters of the mentor program and were happy to help with licenses for the Food From the Field program, Lentsch said.

He said the deer were all whitetail and there was one antelope that another hunter donated for the program that was included in the meat distributed last week.

Youngquist said, “We are so appreciative of the efforts of Matt Lentsch to get the kids involved and help us get so much high quality protein to people who can really use it.”

ADMIRAL BEVERAGE

Since its inception Admiral Transportation Corporation (ATC) in Worland has assisted the Wyoming Hunger Initiative with the Food from the Field program.

ATC Director of Logistics Greg Venable, who is also vice chairman of the Wyoming Transportation Commission, was contacted by First Lady Jennie Gordon’s Chief of Staff Trista Ostrom, about helping with the program.

“They asked if we could support the program and, of course, Greg’s all about that,” ATC Safety Manager Bart Richardson said.

Last year ATC dispatched a driver, tractor and refrigerated trailer over to Thayne. It was prepositioned next to a packaging business so that hunters could donate their carcasses to the program to await CWD testing until processing could commence.

He said they would send a mechanic over to Thayne on occasion to work on it and Venable also checked on the trailer on occasion to make sure things were working properly.

The trailer was at Thayne about three months last year.

This year with more processing plants participating in the program, the First Lady’s office asked ATC for additional refrigerated trailers.

They have 53-foot trailers positioned at Wapiti, Riverton and Thayne.

Richardson said supporting the program does take three refrigerated trailers out of the ATC fleet for a few months; however, he said “It’s of significant important to our state that we are willing to just go ahead and find other methods to operate our business without those trailers in our inventory for the period of time. We want to help any way, shape or form we can, especially during the holiday season. So that’s our way of giving back.”