Polka-Dotted Venison?!

On February 6th, 2013 at 3:49pm Anonymous said:

Take it easy Jim. I thought Michael had a very good point but then again I guess we're just underlings to the the great MDC authority and we should all learn our place.

On January 30th, 2013 at 9:26am lowj said:

Michael, I was the one who wrote the spotted-venison post. When I was writing the item, I asked Jason Sumners what could cause the spots. He said it could be several things, but the most likely was that the deer didn't die immediately on being shot. Whatever the cause, he said the meat was safe to eat. Giving a COMPLETE answer, with all the possible causes, would have turned into a book. I hit the high points, because most people don't want to read a long dissertation in a blog. I take strong exception to you implying that Jason and other MDC biologists are lazy, unintelligent, over educated bureaucrats with no practical experience. If you knew anything about MDC's staff, you would know how foolish that makes you sound. - Jim@mdc

On January 30th, 2013 at 7:36am Michael said:

I have processed lots of deer also, have not seen this, but I still like to keep an open mind. I would be wondering if once again the determination of the cause was to quick and therefore more of a shot in the dark than having the guts to say they were unsure of the cause, the MDC today is comprised mostly of people without practical outdoor or even farm related experience with animals. Pork has more of this tendency than most any other animals, and is more noticeable in non-heritage types. Since the recent hemorrhagic fever/midge fly event of this past year that weakens blood vessel/artery walls; could this be a deer that survived or still had a prolonged condition from an infection of that type? – an open mind would actually consider possibilities not just give a answer to get off the phone or to ignore other possible causes because there might be more work involved in an answer that took more than 1 minute of rational thought. I think the MDC has done many good things and will do more in the future, but they are currently a victim of their own privileged individual status and many in the MDC have been promoted and or educated beyond their own intelligence and therefore common sense does not figure into decisions and actions as often as it should. Would this Biologist have feed this meat to himself and his own family? (Yes the meat was probably ok to eat if cooked to a proper temperature, but getting a sample of meat and blood vessels and arteries to test would have been a more common sense action to be taken by the department)

On January 29th, 2013 at 5:07pm alan said:

just to give you heads up with the polka dotted meat. It can be a deer that survived EHD too. Its tiny hemorages causing the spots. Safe to eat just doesn't look good.

On January 29th, 2013 at 1:42pm Anonymous said:

i shot several deer in the head over my years of hunting and droped them in there tracts and have never seen that in the meat it might just be something in the blood line passed on or like blood clotting in the meat over time