Last fall, not long after deer season ended, a hunter from western Maine telephoned me seeking advice.
The conversation went something like this:
“I shot a nice buck this fall and it’s all packaged in my freezer,” he said proudly. “There is one problem, though. My wife refuses to eat the meat because of the state consumption advisories that warned about those ‘forever chemicals’ in deer meat.”
“Did you kill the deer in one of the consumption advisory areas?,” I asked.
“Hell no,” he exclaimed. “My buck was taken 100 miles from the state’s designated no- consumption area. She and I have been eating venison for years, and enjoying it. I can’t believe this!”
“Did you explain this to her?,” I queried.
“Yep, but it didn’t matter. She has sworn off deer meat, and always loved it,” he said.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Inform your wife that I will gladly drive all the way up from Ellsworth and pick up her share of the venison, if she is willing to part with it.”
He chuckled and said, “I gettcha. I’ll run that by her.”
I have never heard back, so I’m not sure how that particular venison dilemma panned out.
Without doubt, there are other versions of this story taking place in some Maine homes. This point is underscored by the fact that the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is collaborating with the University of Maine on an in-depth survey of licensed Maine hunters.
The main purpose of the survey is to determine how hunter behavior and perceptions are being affected by the no-eat consumption advisories on deer and turkey meat in areas of the state known to have higher than average concentrations of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — PFAS — including Albion, Fairfield, Freedom, Skowhegan and Unity.
PFAS, used in everyday items such as nonstick cookware, stain resistant carpeting, food containers and some clothing and cosmetics, stay in the environment a long time and are known to increase cancer risk and affect child development. PFAS was in municipal sludge that was deemed safe and spread on farmer fields in Maine in the 1980s and 1990s as fertilizer, causing high levels of the forever chemicals to remain in the soil over time.
Nathan Webb, the head of the wildlife division for DIF&W, indicated to me that there was concern within the department that the warnings about forever chemicals in wild meat was in fact discouraging deer and turkey hunters, some who may not even hunt in the no-eat zones.
It is important and sometimes difficult to keep perspective on these safe-food issues. Unlike the good old days, science now has the capacity and instruments to measure just about everything we consume to the nth degree.
Chemicals and preservatives are in just about everything we buy that is processed. Take a simple hamburger roll and read the long list of its ingredients. We are eating things we cannot even pronounce.
According to science, the wife of the hunter with whom I talked and the hunter — and the rest of us for that matter — already have some “forever chemicals” in our blood.
This is a fair question: Did our state officials overreact or not present the consumption advisories in the context of the times? Or should they have given us a better explanation of just how much risk is involved and what the percentage of contamination exists in wild meat from the advisory areas?
For example, the state’s fish-consumption advisories are detailed and authoritative inasmuch that they tell you precisely how much fish you can safely consume from any given body of water.
Interestingly, DIF&W’s counterpart in Wisconsin, a big deer hunting state, which is also issuing wild meat consumption advisories in specific geographical areas of that state, is cautioning hunters only to avoid eating deer liver. They examined 20 deer in a PFAS area and said it is still okay to consume venison (muscle) from those areas.
Is Wisconsin’s “forever chemical” problem different from Maine’s? Honestly, I don’t know the answer.
I do know that this era we are in is a chemical-intense society, foodwise and otherwise. Unless you raise all of your own food, the consumption risks are formidable. The choices we make do matter.
To my way of thinking, wild game, in the modern scheme of things, is still a good choice.
V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide and host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network. He has written three books.Online purchase information is available at www.sportingjournal.com, Outdoor Books.
