Big Game Field Dressing Safety - Long Overlooked

For some reason, I never gave it much thought. Perhaps the excitement and pride I have always felt, harvesting a big game animal, clouded my mind as the knife came out and the "mess" began. That is not until the day I slipped.
I thought that I had just nicked my finger but as the job progressed, so did the pain. It wasn't until I finished and pulled off my field dressing gloves that I discovered a cut worthy of stitches!

Back at camp, that afternoon, a conversation with my hunting partners started the ball rolling. "If you really think about it, it's sort of nuts to stick your fingers in there with any sharp knife", said my Brother Mark. We were both taught how to field dress by a certified hunting instructor, one of the best we'd ever met, our Dad. Dad wasn't much of a trophy hunter. He loved his venison so cutting up the cape was no big deal for him. He showed us how to guide the knife blade with our fingers so as not to cut the entrails and make easy work of the heart/lungs by cutting straight through the neck and severing the trach.
As the years passed, Dad supplied the venison (as did we) and Brother Mark, Cousin Rich, and I concentrated on trophies. That's when our methods to the "task at hand" changed. I've nicked the stomach a few times and a trophy buck demands a more care to preserve the cape for mounting. Our days of cutting through the neck or up through the brisket where over. I never liked cutting up through the brisket anyway as it always dulled my sharp knife rendering it useless. My technique for removing the heart/lungs included fishing both arms up into the chest cavity, one searching for, finding, and holding the trach, while the other carefully turned and maneuvered the knife into place for the cut. This is the technique that nicked me more than a few times and ultimately led to the bulky bandages that made hunting difficult for the next few weeks.
Did you ever have those nightmares as a kid that it's the first day of school and you can't find your class room or can't remember your locker combination? You know the ones I'm talking about! Mine was that I would somehow break my arm the day before bow season and not be able to draw my bow! I never gave much thought to slicing myself with a knife! Though primarily a bow hunter, I hunt all seasons. If the powers to be ever come up with a "spears" season, I'll be out there!
That season, 2006, the next deer shot, a plump doe became my Design and Engineering specimen and drawing board for the purpose of studying other methods and ultimately tools, to make field dressing safer and more efficient. For over an hour, sketch pad in hand, I used my design background and design for Six Sigma tools to chart and study the procedure. The resulting tools have been accepted with rave reviews by our local contingent of sporting goods stores as well as the bulk of 400 field trials by the North American Hunting Club members during the 2007 deer and elk seasons. Even the "old timers", set in their ways, got it and liked it!
They (whoever they are) say "necessity is the mother of invention". This inventor believes that more than ever as do my fingers!

“Deer Meat Safety Guide for Deer Hunters” from Deer Processing Expert Marty Prokop Offers Solution for Lead in Venison Problem

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Free deer meat guide reveals 10 common deer processing mistakes to avoid to keep food banks, deer hunters, families and children safe from lead in venison.

Marty who has processed over 7,800 deer in his 26 years experience as a professional meat cutter, deer processor and deer hunter, whose videos are used in Advanced Hunter Education says, “This isn’t speculation anymore. Deer processors and deer hunters can’t guess and can’t use the same old deer butchering ways.”

“To keep your family and children safe, you must know what to do and look for in proper, safe deer processing — whether you process deer yourself or have a butcher process for you. The ‘Deer Meat Safety Guide for Deer Hunters’ offers the solution to the problem of lead in venison and it is free at http://www.huntingheadlines.com”

Disturbing statistics and findings surfacing show:

• The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study released in November 2008 found that higher levels of lead show up in blood of people who eat deer harvested with lead bullets than people who don’t — causing danger for families, especially pregnant women and children.

• The deer meat processed at meat shops and eaten by deer hunters, families and children is not inspected for safety or approved as being fit for human consumption like beef and pork. Due to a Department of Agriculture meat inspection loophole, venison harvested by deer hunters is uninspected meat.

• Department of Agriculture tests showed 87% of meat shops tested processed lead in venison, due in part to lack of inspection.

• Lead fragments were discovered in deer meat as far away as 18 inches from the initial bullet entry point, resulting in lead being overlooked, processed and fed to families.

• Department of Natural Resources tests revealed one out of five deer hunters don’t know how to correctly process deer resulting in dangerous lead in the deer meat they butchered.

Believing deer processing and deer meat are inspected for safety like beef and pork.
There is a severe lack of deer processing training for deer hunters and meat processors and no certification or inspection for safety of the deer meat.

How using saws and the wrong knives can lead to lead in venison and higher bacteria in venison.
Sharing a grinder with other deer hunters — one hunter’s dirty trim can contaminate hundreds of pounds of other hunters’ venison.

Having your deer processed after 6 pm

Not watching what cuts of meat go in the grinder. Trusting the meat in ground venison is not contaminated or dangerous — whether processed at a meat shop or by the deer hunter.

Lack of education on what is safe deer meat and what is not.

Deer hunters feeding deer rib meat and deer fat to their families.

Eating slightly discolored meat that looks safe, but it’s not.

Accepting stinky or bad tasting venison.