14 DAY TRIAL // Officials in North Dakota, leading a program of distributing deer meat to the poor, said that they would only accept arrow-killed deer meat from now on, as health experts warn that lead fragments that spread through the body of the kill pose a serious risk of intoxication, especially for small children and pregnant women.
Some 17,000 pounds of venison from 381 deer were donated to the North Dakota Community Action Partnership, after the hunting season of 2007. When the Health Department recently warned about the dangers the meat posed, some 4,000 pounds of it were already in pantries across the state. The withdrawal already began, and authorities are hopeful that no more people will get sick over the food.
The Game and Fish Department announced that, during the last hunting season, some 100,000 citizens went deer hunting and that approximately the same number of deer were killed. The director of the organization said that a large part of the hunters would switch to non-lead ammo, following the complaints, but some would only use traditional ammo. The Department has yet to make a public recommendation on the matter.
Lead intoxication can have a whole range of effects on vulnerable categories of people, ranging from headaches to convulsions and learning problems. The most severe cases, when lead concentrations inside the body are very high, can result in permanent brain damage and even death. Considering that poor people also have increased risks of developing serious medical conditions, the two factors could lead to an onset of epidemics throughout the state.
In order to avoid this, officials argued the necessity of hunters killing deer more carefully, in that they should use only well-placed shots, to minimize the damage to the carcass and avoid lead spreading inside. This could significantly reduce the risk of contamination.