[h=1]http://montanawildlife.org/mwf-has-beef-with-arbys-elk-sandwich/
MWF Has Beef with Arby’s Elk Sandwich[/h][h=2]Menu promotes unethical game farms & erodes fair chase hunting[/h]
The Montana Wildlife Federation (MWF) is requesting a fast-food restaurant reconsider offering farm-raised elk to customers in Montana over concerns the practice could fuel an expansion of unethical commercial markets and erode Montana’s fair chase hunting culture.
In a
letter sent today to Arby’s Corporation, MWF says the new menu options in three western location, including Billings, could lead to an increase in game farming practices which have been proven to impact the health of wild herds and privatize a public resource. The letters states, “elk and deer are best left as wild, free-ranging animals that are part of the public trust, managed by the state for the benefit of all Montanans.”
“There is a real danger in marketing wildlife as a commodity like this,” said Nick Gevock, conservation director for the Montana Wildlife Federation. “This runs counter to Montana’s fair-chase hunting values by encouraging the commercialization of a public wildlife resource.”
Game farms are already illegal in Montana after a citizen voter initiative banned them in 2000. Groups including the Montana Wildlife Federation, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Montana Bowhunters Association, and other local rod and gun clubs asserted the practice spreads disease to wild herds including chronic wasting disease, a fatal neurological disorder.
Although game farms are legal in other areas of the globe, the Montana Wildlife Federation says that the majority of Montanan don’t believe the practice is ethical or necessary. The letter states, “Fundamentally, Montanans would rather hunt wild elk on public and private lands in our state than get them from a game farming operation that threatens the public wildlife resource.”
The Montana Wildlife Federation is urging the restaurant find a better way to promote hunting that doesn’t place public wildlife values at risk.
“There are much better ways to promote our hunting heritage and we welcome a productive dialogue with the leadership at Arby’s,” said Dave Chadwick, the executive director of Montana Wildlife Federation.
The best way to gain notoriety is to make claims. Such as PETA saying if people want dairy products they should get it from a woman's breast not cows. It's outrageous but we know they would like to dictate that you shouldn't drink milk from an animal. The Montana Wildlife Federation rips one right out of the PETA playbook. CONTROL. And did you notice they forgot to mention that the venison is from Red Deer from New Zealand.
Stopped at Arby's in Bismarck and inquired about the venison steak sandwich. The gal said they sold out the very first day. Here is Arbys side of the story:
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An Arby's in Bozeman, Mont. Arby's is the first major fast food chain to serve deer meat nationwide.
Nate Hegyi/Yellowstone Public Radio hide caption
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Nate Hegyi/Yellowstone Public Radio
An Arby's in Bozeman, Mont. Arby's is the first major fast food chain to serve deer meat nationwide.
Nate Hegyi/Yellowstone Public Radio
At a ranch house in rural Montana, Rick White peels the bun off Arby's new venison sandwich.
"It looks like deer," he says. "Venison."
His dog, Finn, stares at the sandwich and whines.
"It's a gray meat," he says. "It doesn't look like a ground patty. It looks more like McDonald's style, but thicker."
Like a lot of people in Montana, White is a lifelong deer hunter. And he's just the kind of person Arby's wants eating their new venison and elk steak sandwiches.
The company rolled them out on Oct. 21 as many states were starting their annual hunting season. Arby's tested elk steak sandwiches in three locations and they're the first major fast food chain to serve deer meat nationwide.
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Lifelong hunter Rick White tries Arby's new venison sandwich at his home in Twin Bridges, Mont. Nate Hegyi/Yellowstone Public Radio hide caption
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Nate Hegyi/Yellowstone Public Radio
Lifelong hunter Rick White tries Arby's new venison sandwich at his home in Twin Bridges, Mont.
Nate Hegyi/Yellowstone Public Radio
Not everyone was drooling with excitement.
"We really shouldn't be selling game animals for food," Dave Chadwick, executive director of the Montana Wildlife Federation, says.
His organization was founded by hunters, anglers and other conservationists. This month the group sent a letter to Arby's asking the company to reconsider serving venison and elk steak sandwiches, in part because they hark back to a long and dark history of selling wild game in the United States.
"One of the real drivers of America's wildlife crisis in the 19th century was unregulated market hunting and the idea that big game animals were being shot and sold for food," he says.
Market hunting drove bison, elk and other wildlife to the brink of extinction before it was eventually banned in the United States.
Arby's isn't sending hunters into the woods to kill thousands of elk and deer. That would be illegal. Instead, the fast-food company is sourcing their venison from game farms in New Zealand.
"It's free-range, grass-fed, red-tailed deer, the highest quality venison you can get anywhere in the world," Arby's President Rob Lynch says.
(The deer purchased in New Zealand are called red deer, not red-tailed deer.)
According to Lynch, it's the same venison that is served at high-end restaurants across the country.
"You can't procure venison in the United States at scale to commercialize, so you have to go all the way to New Zealand to get this," he says.
But for Chadwick, game-farmed deer and elk — even if they're from New Zealand — still strike a nerve.
"It's still just the principle of selling an animal that most Montanans recognize and hold dear as a wild animal and really a symbol of the Rocky Mountain West," he says.
Lynch says he respected where the Montana Wildlife Federation was coming from.
At the end of the day, he says, it's going to be individual hunters who decide whether or not they'll take to Arby's new sandwiches.
Hunters like White. He's leaning over his stove, chewing on the sandwich.
"It doesn't taste strongly of deer," he says. "I would say it would be like deer-ite. Not a Budweiser but a Bud Lite. It doesn't have that punch to it but in a pinch it's not a bad sandwich."
So at least one hunter likes it. And apparently so did a lot of others, because the company said many of their locations sold out on the first day.
