Deer clubs step up to feed Arkansans in need

LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas deer hunters working with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Deer Management Assistance Program and Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry are putting meat in the freezer for hundreds of Arkansas schoolchildren, thanks to a new partnership to better coordinate hunts used to balance their deer herds.

“A lot of our clubs have to harvest a certain amount of does on their property each year to help balance the ratio of males to females in their area,” Jeremy Brown, DMAP coordinator for the AGFC, said. “But once a lot of the hunters have filled a tag or two, they have more meat than they can handle for the next year. We’re working with those clubs and Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry to deliver special refrigerated trailers for a weekend at a time to collect those deer that hunters are still needing to harvest but don’t have the space for.”

Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry has been providing protein in the form of donated venison to families in need for more than two decades. Since its founding in 2000, AHFH has delivered more than 6 million meals to hungry Arkansans. While most of that has been ground venison through local food shelters and food pantries, the organization’s latest offering is in the form of protein-rich snack sticks packed away in backpack programs for schoolchildren in underserved communities.

Each deer donated through the deer trailers is tested for chronic wasting disease and processed into shelf stable snack sticks discreetly tucked away for children in households in need to take home on nights and weekends.

“The testing is actually helping us reach our goals in CWD sampling in some parts of the state, too,” Brown said. “You hear a lot of talk about win-win situations, but it’s hard to keep track of all the “wins” this new trailer effort has created.”

In addition to feeding food-insecure schoolchildren, helping deer clubs maintain healthy deer herds on their property and helping deer managers in Arkansas gather samples for disease monitoring efforts, the program has spawned many mentored hunts where the deer clubs are inviting local youths to join them for a weekend and build hunting traditions.

“That’s really when we realized we had a great thing going,” Brown said. “The clubs were starting to step up and get creative with ways to do even more good with the deer hunts that they were having to meet their quotas and fill those freezer trailers for those in need. One even set up a full weekend with a mentored hunt and fishing derby on their property and raised additional money for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Get It for Game Wardens program.”

Brown says 16 clubs have donated 224 deer so far this hunting season. Combined with previous years, Brown says the program has delivered more than a half-million packages of snack sticks and anticipates to be close to the 600,000-mark by the end of this deer season.

“And there’s room for more clubs to help us out even more,” Brown said. “We have four trailers available to drop off with clubs to collect deer through these organized hunts, and we have spaces available in December through February to keep those trailers hopping.”

Clubs can contact their local DMAP biologist to set up a drop-off location and they will receive a refrigerated trailer that can hold up to 30 harvested deer. The biologist will drop the trailer off on a Thursday and go over a quick orientation on tagging requirements for DMAP to make sure all club members remain legal through the hunt. They’ll come back the following Monday to pick it up, pull CWD samples and deliver the deer to the processor.

“We have a minimum requirement of 10 deer before we park the trailer,” Brown said. “But we’ve had a couple of clubs join together to bring all their deer in, so it’s also helping build relationships between neighboring clubs. They’ve formed sort of mini donation co-ops.”

Brown says the trailers have dramatically increased the number of deer harvested by the clubs, especially in the early season.

“We have some clubs that are finally meeting their doe harvest goals, and they’re doing it before the rut,” Brown said. “By taking those does out of the population before the rut, it helps with balancing sex ratios, reducing stress levels and promotes more rutting activity, actually increasing the opportunities for hunters to see some of those mature bucks that normally would have stayed hidden because they didn’t have to compete as hard to breed.”

Brown says the program could not have happened without the recent partnership between the AGFC and the National Deer Association, which added five cost-share biologists to work with DMAP clubs in Arkansas.

“We have private lands biologists who work for the AGFC’s Private Lands Habitat Division as well, but these new biologist positions are taking the brunt of the deer club work to free those other biologists up for the private land habitat work they need to accomplish,” Brown said. “Having the NDA come alongside us for deer club programs like this is huge.”

Donation trailers are available through February. Visit www.agfc.com/dmap to learn more about the AGFC’s Deer Management Assistance Program and reach out to the DMAP biologist in your area.

For more information about Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry, visit www.arkansashunters.org.

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CUTLINES:

MEN WITH SNACK STICKS
DMAP Coordinator Jeremy Brown (left) and AHFH Executive Director Ronnie Ritter delivering protein-rich snack sticks to schools derived through the Deer Management Assistance Program. AGFC photo. 

LARGE GROUP AT TABLES
Some deer clubs have organized entire mentored hunt weekends around harvesting deer to donate. AGFC photo.

LARGE GROUP WITH TRAILER
Deer clubs can request a refrigerated trailer to be dropped off for the weekend and DMAP biologist will pick up the deer to be tested and processed when the trailer is full. AGFC photo.

SMALL GROUP WITH TRAILER
Smaller deer clubs can band together to meet the 10 deer minimum requirement to request a trailer. AGFC photo. 

DEER IN TRUCK
Organized efforts by deer clubs in Arkansas are helping provide food for families in need throughout the state. AGFC photo.