A bill in the Legislature to allow Nebraska hunters to donate the deer they kill to feed the needy makes good sense from several standpoints.
It gives hunters who don't want to butcher and keep their kill an outlet, preventing waste. It helps control deer populations. And it can provide much-needed, good-quality protein to nonprofits that feed the hungry, such as Omaha's Siena-Francis House, and to state prisons and other institutions.
The major hitch is over who should pay to process the meat into usable form and distribute it. The bill specifies that a portion of the hunting permit fee could be designated by the hunter for a special fund to pay for processing; the state Game and Parks Commission, which now gets all of the permit fee, objects.
It is a negotiable point — perhaps hunters could be asked for donations, as they are by the Lincoln area chapter of Whitetails Unlimited, which runs a donation program. Perhaps a $1 surcharge could be added to permit fees and put toward processing, as is done in Iowa. Perhaps the prison system could pay for its own processing. Perhaps donations could be raised elsewhere.
It is a point that should be worked out. Using deer meat that would once have gone to waste in order to feed the needy is, as bill sponsor Sen. Tony Fulton of Lincoln said, "a no-brainer."
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