GAME MEAT SCANNING SERVICE

The harvesting of wild game in Wyoming for food is an important part of our culture, heritage, and food system, as well as a tool for managing wildlife. Wyoming hunters and anglers care about their neighbors and share their harvests with family, friends and even donate back to the community through food-donation programs.

Bullets for hunting are designed to expand and mushroom. During this process, lead bullets can lose up to 40% of their weight as tiny fragments traveling up to 18” from the bullet’s trajectory. These fragments end up in the gut pile and can end up in the processed game meat that we bring home to our friends, families, and neighbors.

Sporting Lead-Free provides free scanning for game meat donation programs to identify packages that contain lead fragments. This added step guarantees that our neighbors and families are knowledgeable about what is in their food and allows the individuals to make informed choices.

*Bryan X-raying donated elk and deer game meat.*

From 2020-2022, we have scanned over 2,300lbs of donated game meat (deer, elk, bison, and pronghorn). We identified that over 18% of packaged ground game meat contained at least one lead fragment. These fragments go unnoticed as we prep, cook, and enjoy our harvest. While a grown adult has little risk from occasional small lead ingestion, no amount of lead is considered safe to consume. Risks can be much higher for children whose growing bodies are more prone to harm and for women who are or may become pregnant (Learn More About Lead Exposure).

Lead-free ammunition is the proactive, preventive approach to avoid consuming any lead and ensures clean, safe meat for our kids, grandkids, family, friends, and neighbors.

Sporting Lead-Free wants to preserve hunters' choice of ammunition while encouraging them to voluntarily choose lead-free in the field.

Sporting Lead-Free is working with partners to:

Help safeguard this important service hunters provide to our communities.
Reinforce personal choice hunters have in the field.
Ensure families receive the best, cleanest meat possible.

1. Hunters donate their game meat to a local food processor
2. Sporting Lead-Free can scan the meat before it goes to the processor or after
3. The processor packages the meat
4. Meat moves to the distributor
5. Sporting Lead-Free scans the packaged meat
6. Meat with traces of lead are labeled and separated. Options:
  1. Throw-away packages
  2. Give to recipients with warning it has traces of lead
  3. Meat is repurposed for agriculture use
7. Clean, lead-free meat is distributed to the community!
- No amount of lead is considered safe to consume, but more importantly, the current food donation system does not create transparency for families to have a choice.
- USDA/AFIS do not have any scanning requirements or contaminants in foodstuffs guidelines for meat. The European Commission set the maximum lead level contaminants for “Meat (excluding offal) of bovine animals, sheep, pig and poultry” at 0.1 parts per million (ppm). (source).
- Most states have hunter food donation programs. Find a donation program.
- Minnesota has been scanning all donated game meat since 2008. (source)
  - Firearms harvested venison products must undergo screening for lead by x-ray prior to distribution. Any packages found to contain lead are discarded. (source)