Wisconsin’s gun deer hunt is in full swing.
Several hundred thousand folks wearing blaze orange or fluorescent pink are expected across the Wisconsin landscape – all hoping for success during the nine-day season. Many of those hunters use lead ammunition.
The Department of Natural Resources reminds people to hunt and travel safely, but some people want the agency to warn hunters their harvest might be contaminated due to the lead bullets.
Last month, the subject of lead in venison popped up at a meeting of the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board, which oversees the DNR.
Dr. Susan Davidson brought up her worries about lead poisoning.
“The issue I have come today concerns the DNR’s poor communication regarding the dangers of eating venison obtained from deer shot with lead bullets,” she says.
Davidson specializes in high-risk obstetrics and is a member of the Wisconsin Environmental Health Network. She says lead is a potent neurotoxin that should be addressed at every source.
“(Lead) exposure at any time in life, including in utero, causes lead to be stored in the bones. It has been found that progressively increasing maternal blood (lead) levels are associated with progressively decreasing IQ levels in their children,” she says.
Davidson says the DNR has failed to share that message. She read language she found on the agency’s website: “‘There is currently no known evidence linking human lead venison consumption to lead poisoning.’ So, I’ve come to ask that the DNR remove the ambiguous wording on their website and make it clear that lead is deleterious at any level,” Davidson says.
DNR Deputy Secretary Steven Little had prepared a response.
“First of all, doctor, thank you for your comments and for testifying, appearing this morning. There is unanimous agreement that a statement and content on the safety of eating wild game in the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources related to lead in venison needs updating to more closely reflect current public health recommendations. Language needs to be updated as it relates to lead exposure. Recommendations are being developed on the advisory with the goal of revising language to be prominently displayed on each agency’s website in time for the nine-day gun deer season, if not sooner,” Little says.
A DNR webpage formerly titled Safely Consuming Game now reads Safely Eating Venison.
An agency spokesperson told WUWM the DNR collaborated with the Department of Health Services to craft its language.
It reads, in part: "Although research has not linked lead in venison to human health effects, tests on processed venison suggest some samples may have levels of concern."
David Clausen was instrumental in planting the seed but wishes it were more robust.
The retired veterinarian served on the Natural Resources Board from 2006 to 2013, including as its chair.
Clausen had shared his concerns about lead in venison at the board’s meeting in August. He pointed to a 2008 study by the DNR and state Department of Health Services that showed the risk of exposure.
“Fifteen percent of commercially processed venison was contaminated with lead at a mean concentration of 15.9 parts per million,” Clausen says.
Clausen is especially concerned about venison donated to food pantries. Nearly four million pounds have been donated between 2000 and 2023.
“If 15 percent is contaminated, that’s 585,000 pounds total, or more than 25,000 pounds a year of contaminated meat going into the diets of some already vulnerable people,” he says.
Clausen, who’s an avid hunter, told WUWM he tested his own venison.
“I process my own meat, and I’m extremely careful about it. And so I took 20 packages of loins and steaks and roasts — there was no ground meat, it was all whole meat. And I X-rayed 20 packages in my office and was really surprised to find significant lead in three of those packages,” he says.
Clausen immediately got rid of his lead ammunition and switched to copper.
At the state level, Clausen says agencies became proactive.
For several years, the DNR held educational sessions around the state, encouraging people to make the switch, and “the Department of Health Services issued a letter to food pantries telling them not to distribute any venison unless they had it X-rayed by the local veterinarian,” he says.
Clausen says he’s not sure why those initiatives vanished.
Neighboring states take stronger stances, including Minnesota. “Minnesota X-rays every package of donated venison,” Clausen says.
He wants bolder action in Wisconsin. Banning lead — both in ammunition and fishing equipment — tops his list.
“That is not going to be [an] immediate type of thing. That will take some work and some time,” he says.
Clausen says his work won’t be done until state agencies deliver clear and consistent messages that any exposure to lead from any source poses a public health risk, especially to young children.
