I’m sure you have heard the saying “use the whole pig except the oink”. When it comes to game birds, I follow that same philosophy. My primary purpose of hunting is for the meat (except giblets), and there have been numerous studies supporting the fact that wild game meat is much healthier than domestic meat. The Reader’s Digest reported “Grain-fed beef (which includes practically any beef you buy in the supermarket) has as much as 36 percent fat, while game meats such as bison, wildfowl, and venison have about 3 to 4 percent, like most fish. A 3-ounce serving of venison, for instance, contains 2.7 grams of fat, none of it saturated, while a 3-ounce serving of buffalo has just 2 grams of fat, less than 1 gram saturated. And game meats also contain more omega-3 fatty acids.” (http://www.rd.com/content/wild-game-for-healthier-meat/)
The other reason I hunt is for my dogs. There is nothing quite like seeing the joy in your dogs’ eyes when they are given free rein do at what they are bred to do.
I eat what I shoot, but I don’t waste the rest of the bird either. I save the wings by placing them in gallon-size freezer bags and freezing them so that I always have wings for training. If you have all the wings you need, give them to another hunter or contact your local retriever or field dog club, such as the AKC (American Kennel Club) or NAVHDA (North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association) to see if there is someone who could use them.
If you know anyone who ties their own flies or if there is a local fly fishing organization, donate your bird hackles and flank feathers to them… or like me, use them yourself. If you are ambitious enough, goose and duck feathers can be saved and used for down-filled coats, pillows and comforters; when I was a kid we saved enough feathers for my mother to make me a down-filled coat. You can search the Internet for instructions on cleaning the feathers.
Remember though, that it is illegal to sell any wild game birds or wild game bird parts. There may be exceptions, but to be safe don’t sell or trade your waterfowl and game birds or parts. I checked the laws of a few randomly selected states and in every state I checked, it was illegal to sell waterfowl and wild game birds or parts.
The average sportsman is a conservationist, despite what some may say. This is evident in volunteers and organizations such as Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, Ruffed Grouse Society, and many other conservation groups that date back to the days of local rod-and-gun-clubs. So when you bag some birds, remember to think beyond the breast fillets and use the whole bird.
Tags: conservationist, game birds, waterfowl
