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Sportsman Outdoors

Venison Donation Coalition needs money!

Jack Danchak
Posted 10/28/22

Since 1999, the Venison Donation Coalition has distributed venison to help feed needy families across New York State.

The Coalition will continue that mission in the future, but due to financial …

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Sportsman Outdoors

Venison Donation Coalition needs money!

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Since 1999, the Venison Donation Coalition has distributed venison to help feed needy families across New York State.

The Coalition will continue that mission in the future, but due to financial limitations and other factors, the organization will have to downsize programs.    

While the organization has distributed venison donation nearly statewide for years, it will now concentrate on ten upstate counties, Genesee, Monroe, Wyoming, Livingston, Steuben, Yates, Shenango, Onondaga, Cayuga and Oneida. 

The donation program has largely been supported by state grants, two five years each from DEC and two 5 years each from the Department of Health. The current grant is now expiring.  

Greg Forest a founding member of the Coalition said, “Permanent funding would be a dream come true that would allow processors to be paid full retail rates. Some states commit a portion of license dollars to these programs.”

Legally, the organization will still be known as the Venison Donation Coalition, but in the future, will serve the ten counties through an undertaking known as the Western and Central New York Pantry Project. 

Hunters and others can help keep the program going by supporting it financially as well as through venison donations. The Coalition website is under construction but does include an email link for people who want more information (venisondonation.com).

The Delaware Venison Donation Coalition focuses on its new 9 county region, an organization known as Feeding New York State will continue to provide venison donations across the rest of the state.

Greg Forest stated, “I have always felt blessed to be involved from the beginning and very humbled by the amount of folks I have developed friendships with that I have never met. Yet their volunteer passion has been what really makes this work. With the downsizing it’s not so much regrets as heartbreaking.” 

A Wolf Taken in New York State

A second DNA test arranged by the NY DEC has confirmed that an 85-pound canine taken by a hunter in Otsego County, NY during the 2021 coyote hunting season was a wolf.

After initial DNA analysis completed this summer determined the wild canid to be most closely identified as a Eastern coyote, DNA submitted voluntarily by the hunter was sent for further analysis to Princeton University. Dr. Bridgett VonHolt, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, declared it definitely to be a wolf.  

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