Remove And Care For Edible Meat

Idaho hunters must remove and care for all of the edible meat of big-game animals they tag during the season.

Phil Cooper, Idaho Fish and Game Department spokesman in Coeur d’Alene, said mountain lions are the only exception to the law governing game meat wastage.

“As hunters,” he says, “it is our responsibility to hunt in locations and under temperatures whereby we can pack out game meat before it spoils.”

Extremely hot weather during the early part of the archery season taxed the ingenuity of hunters who killed deer and elk in remote areas.

Archers who took bull elk several miles from their vehicles had to dress, skin and sack the meat as quickly as possible and then pack it to the nearest open roads.

Experienced hunters keep several coolers stocked with ice in their rigs so the meat can be cooled in the field.

Cooper said Fish and Game considers “edible” meat to include “the meat of the front quarters as far down as the knee, hindquarters as far down as the hock, neck meat, meat along the backbone and meat covering the ribs.”

Not included are meat of the head, internal organs (heart or liver) or meat on the bones after trimming.

Conservation officers, when checking hunters and their game, use that definition of edible meat, Cooper said.