Clarksville, IA- This weekend is the last chance for Iowa hunters to bag a deer.
The second shotgun season ends on Sunday, and its not just hunters who are hoping for success.
Hunters in Iowa and Minnesota don't need to keep all of the deer they've shot. They can donate the meat to participating butcher shops.
Deer hunting season is a busy time for Orly’s Meat Locker Owner Rex Ackerman and many other butcher shops in Iowa and Minnesota.
He's one of the few shop owners participating in Hush or Help Us Stop Hunger.
"Many lockers are busy enough with the harvested deer that are brought in by the hunter that wants to keep it and they don't want to take on the extra workload or the extra stress levels or the extra hours to put in to do more deer than what they're already processing," Ackerman said.
But he knows the benefits the deer meat brings for area families, ones that don't otherwise get that much needed protein.
"Many families rely on the HUSH program and the main stay of their diet so they are absolutely tickled pink when we call them; many families rely on that meat all year long to keep them going."
He has customers who participate in the program annually and he was seeing a steady increase in donations, until this year.
"Last year we processed about 1800 pounds of the boneless HUSH deer meat that was donated by the actual hunters, this year our numbers are about half of that so far," he said.
Ackerman doesn't think hunters are donating fewer deer, he believes it's a tough year for hunting.
"There's still a lot of standing corn in the fields that the farmers were not able to get to since we did have a wet fall, and I think the deer were still standing in the corn stocks instead of the timber or in the fence lines," he said.
Now he's hoping for good weekend of hunting to help boost donations.
"Anytime you can cut the deer population down, which I think has gotten out of control the last 5 to 8 years so you’re cutting the numbers down plus we’re able to put meat in somebody's freezer, that may not have necessarily gotten meat," he said.
Meat lockers in Iowa get $65 for every donated deer they process. Minnesota meat lockers get $70.
Hunters pay an extra dollar on their permit to fund the programs.
A meat shop owner in Minnesota says many butchers in his state have stopped participating in the program because of the strict meat testing policies.
More than 7,300 deer were donated by hunters to HUSH this last season in Iowa generating 1.3 million meals to those in need.
