Precautions for cleaning game
Taking a few simple precautions when you clean your game can protect you and your family from some nasty health problems.
By James A. Swan, Ph.D.I well remember my first wildlife management class at the University of Michigan. After we had gone through learning to identify the mammals of Michigan, using stuffed critters, Professor Arch Cowan said that we would now learn to do our own museum mounts.
Where would we get the animals?
Arch said, "Don't let me catch you shooting anything out of season. One of the easiest ways to get specimens is look for road kills. But if you go around picking up dead birds and animals, you need to be careful."
Then he added, that we should all get some rubber gloves to handle the critters.
Most of us had been cleaning wild game for years without any effects.
"Let me show you why," he said. Cowan then rolled up the sleeves of his long sleeved shirt. "Wild animals can be carriers of a wide number of viruses and bacteria," he said. His arms had a number of large lumps, which he said that he had for years, the result of a not wearing clothes when doing a dissection of a diseased squirrel.
Needless to say, we all got gloves pronto.
Wild game meat is health food — low in cholesterol and fat, and high in protein. Studies have shown that when native cultures stop eating like modern people and return to a diet rich in wild game, the incidence of diseases of civilization — heart, kidney, high blood pressure, etc. — quickly wane.
Nonetheless, there are health issues associated with wild game due to disease organisms they may carry, some on vectors like ticks, others on their skin, feathers or organs. Some diseases that occur naturally in birds in the Pacific Flyway include avian botulism, avian cholera, mycoplasmosis, salmonellosis and trichomoniasis.
Avian cholera and avian botulism don't effect humans, but they can kill off thousands of birds, especially during the end of the wintering season when there are so many birds congregating in small areas on refuges. When you find sick and dead birds by the thousands, which happens out here in California every few years, alert a game warden or state or federal field biologist as soon as possible. Picking up those birds can help slow or stop the outbreak. In the last couple of years, we've been warned about dangers of H5N1 Avian Influenza being brought into the U.S. by migratory waterfowl. Diseased birds have been found in Africa, Europe and Asia, and they all congregate in those Arctic breeding grounds, which send birds down to us in the fall.
So far, we have been lucky. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service field biologists have been taking samples and H5N1 has not shown up on US soil, but if it does, the chances are that a duck hunter will be among the first to be exposed. Wearing latex or rubber gloves to dress birds, washing your hands when you come out of the field, and even using sanitary wipes in the field, can save you and your family a lot of problems.
Then there are those wild pigs we all love to bag. Some can carry swine brucellosis. It can be transmitted to cattle, horses, rabbits, dogs and humans, where symptoms appear like undulant fever. Rubber gloves, sanitation, and proper cooking can protect you from such things.
You may think that I've being a worry wart. Let me tell you about a card that California Fish and Game Wardens carry to alert physicians of wildlife-borne diseases they may have been in contact with as a result of their normal job. It says that they may have been exposed to: Rabies, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Lyme Disease, Q-fever, Bubonic Plague, Tularemia, Leoptospirosis, Brucellosis, Typhus, Arbovirus, Encephalitis, Spirochaetal Relapsing Fever, Psitticosis, Anthrax, Coccidioidomycosis, Giardiasis, Ascariasis, and Hytadid Disease. They forgot to add in West Nile Virus.
Now, to tell you the truth, I don't know what some of these ailments are. There's a part of me that does not want to know. But the point is that wildlife can be disease vectors. So, an ounce of prevention can be worth one heck of a lot of cure.
To be on the safe side, The California Department of Fish and Game recommends that to prevent exposure to bacteria and viruses, hunters should:
- Not handle birds that are obviously sick
- Keep game birds cool, clean and dry
- Place harvested birds in a washable container for transport (ice chest, etc. that can be sanitized)
- In the field and coming back in from hunting, wash hands before eating, smoking, drinking (use hand sanitizer in duck blinds)
- Use rubber gloves when cleaning game and wash hands with soap and water or alcohol wipes after dressing birds
- Clean all tools and surfaces immediately afterward; use hot soapy water, then disinfect with a 10 percent chlorine bleach solution
- Clean clothes, boots, back of truck, bird prep station well
- Properly dispose of feathers/innards
- Cook game meat thoroughly (155-165°F)
Share this also with your non-hunting friends. People with backyard bird feeders, wildlife rehabilitators, gamebird breeders, people who have geese at community ponds, and people working at licensed game bird clubs, can also have contact with wild birds that can be vectors. The Center for Disease Control reports that Canada goose droppings contain over 140 types of bacteria. 94 percent contain e.coli and salmonella.
The local high school football team had to replace the grass turf on the field with Astroturf to keep the geese from grazing on the field, creating a health hazard for players.
Of course the field is located where one of the best duck clubs around San Francisco Bay used to be located, but that's another story.
James Swan — who has appeared in more than a dozen feature films, including "Murder in the First" and "Star Trek: First Contact," as well as the television series "Nash Bridges," "Midnight Caller" and "Modern Marvels" — is the author of the book "In Defense of Hunting." Click to purchase a copy. To learn more about Swan, visit his Web site.
