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Gleaning some good from a bad situation Mail Tribune / Steve Johnson Louise Swindler sorts through packages of venison and elk meat at the Gleaning Network meatpacking facility in Central Point. By Mark Freeman CENTRAL POINT � A little something special showed up in Carol Carpenter�s Gleaning Network food box Wednesday, courtesy of the wildlife riffraff of Jackson County. Among the bananas, potatoes, squash and bell peppers sat a fresh steak from a Roosevelt elk that had met an ill-timed, and illegal, death on Sunday in the forests near Butte Falls. "It�s definitely an extra treat," says Carpenter, 60, of Central Point. "I haven�t cooked mine yet, but I know it�s going to be excellent." Carpenter�s elk meat is part of about 500 pounds of poached deer and elk cut up by Gleaners last week and dished out to the Rogue Valley�s low-income residents under a game-meat salvage program arranged by the state and supported mainly by crime. Salvageable deer and elk killed by poachers and seized by police in Jackson and Josephine counties are turned over to the Gleaning Network for butchering and dispersing among the 488 low-income households in the Rogue Valley who take part in this volunteer program. Meat from dozens of illegally killed animals, as well as a handful of road-kills and some shot as part of a program to reduce agricultural damage, are funneled each year to the Gleaning Network. The program amounts to making something good from a bad situation. "A lot of people ask that question � what happens to the (poached) animals," says Susan DeHaas, president of the nonprofit Gleaners. "What we�re doing is putting them to good use." The program has its roots in Oregon law, which requires that meat from edible big-game animals not be wasted. It holds true for legitimate hunters as well as biologists and police who seize illegally killed animals. But the animals cannot be sold, so their dispersal had been erratic until a decade ago when the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife created an agreement with the Gleaners to take and distribute the poached animals. "It�s great," says Merv Wolfer, the ODFW�s acting Rogue District wildlife biologist. "It�s good to know the critters are going to good use." Last week alone, Oregon State Police officers seized two elk shot and left in the forest as well as a four-point blacktail buck deer shot illegally at night in someone�s yard near Phoenix. "Some of these things, I�m not going to eat," Trooper Jeff Thompson says. "I�m not going to say something�s fit to eat if I wouldn�t eat it myself." Those judged palatable under Thompson�s standards go to the Gleaners, where the animals are butchered, wrapped and added to food boxes. They go to members who qualify by paying a $20 annual fee and volunteering specific hours for the program. Those not fit for the Gleaners usually go to Wildlife Images animal rehabilitation center in Merlin to be fed to the recuperating animals there, Thompson says. When the animals get dropped off, Louise Swindler helps oversee an army of knife-wielding volunteers who sometimes spend hours cutting and wrapping the fresh elk or venison. "It�s darn good to eat," Swindler says. "We�re real careful about keeping the bloodshot (damaged) meat out." And sometimes, Gleaners employee Diane Lucas says, the volunteers find the offending bullets, cut them out and turn them over to the OSP for evidence. The poached big game, as well as salmon donated from Cole Rivers Hatchery near Trail, account for the lion�s share of the 12,000 pounds of meat the Gleaners send out annually, says Lucas. "We feed a lot of people," Lucas says, "so this helps out. It helps a lot." Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.