The Wild Harvest Initiative®/Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Release Results Wild Food Sharing Survey

The Wild Harvest Initiative^®, a program of Conservation Visions, in partnership with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, is pleased to present the results of the Texas Wild Meat Sharing Survey, the first in a series of statewide surveys designed to quantify the benefits of hunters' unique food sharing traditions.

ST. JOHN'S, NL, Sept. 3, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - In 2018, Conservation Visions' Wild Harvest Initiative®, in partnership with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, conducted the Texas Wild Meat Sharing Survey.  The survey was designed to gather information about the amount of food annually harvested in Texas by recreational hunters and to explore how this food is shared with others, including with community-based charities.

Survey results show that 97.7% of successful hunters in Texas share a significant portion of the food they harvest with others.  This meat is shared annually with an average of 5.8 million people.  More than half of beneficiaries are community members living outside the hunter's household, illustrating that the societal benefits of recreational hunting extend beyond the hunter and the hunter's household to positively impact many other citizens, including those who do not, themselves, hunt.

"Texas hunters have a keen interest in a sustainable harvest of the game animals they pursue," said John Silovsky, Wildlife Division Director with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.  "Whether that be big game, small game or exotic species, adequate harvest management can result in a surplus of wild meat that can be shared with family, friends, neighbors or charitable organizations such as "Hunters for the Hungry". The motivation to harvest game with many of today's hunters is not about trophies but the opportunity to provide healthy wild recreationally harvested meat for the table."

Conservation Visions, through its Wild Harvest Initiative^® program, aims to quantify the benefits of wild meat sharing in the United States and Canada, thus creating a social sharing index.  Future survey implementation is planned in partnership with other state and provincial wildlife agencies.

A summary of the results of the Texas Wild Meat Sharing Survey is available at: https://thewildharvestinitiative.com/initiative/wild-food-sharing-survey-summary-results-texas/. The full report is available here: https://thewildharvestinitiative.com/initiative/wild-food-sharing-findings-from-a-survey-on-the-sharing-and-consumption-of-wild-harvested-meat-in-texas-august-2020/.

About Conservation Visions Inc.

Conservation Visions Inc. is a wildlife initiative founded by internationally recognized biologist, conservation advocate, Shane Mahoney.  It is dedicated to a world where conservation matters; where biodiversity is safeguarded, including the diversity of human cultural experience; where conservation and citizenship are viewed as inseparable; where a global responsibility to nature is recognized; where the sustainable use of natural resources is safeguarded through knowledge; and where governments make sound decisions concerning conservation and biodiversity, based on scientific and traditional wisdom.  To learn more about Conservation Visions and the Wild Harvest Initiative®, please visit www.conservationvisions.com.

SOURCE Conservation Visions Inc.

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