Vermont’s Invisible Law: Hunters Can Sell Venison

Then again, don’t take their word for it. Few Vermont hunters know a state law lets them sell meat from deer, bears, and moose they legally shoot in the fall. They just assume it’s illegal, just like it is across the U.S. and Canada.

That Vermont law—statute 10, chapter 113/04783—clearly states it’s legal to sell “the meat of big game within the state…during the open season and for 20 days thereafter.” The law, however, doesn’t let hunters buy or sell wild turkeys, rabbits, squirrels, snowshoe hares, waterfowl, upland birds, or other small game.

Therefore, if you’re licensed to hunt deer during Vermont’s archery, firearms, or muzzleloading seasons—which, combined, run October 1 through December 15—you can sell your deer’s venison until January 4, as long as the meat stays in Vermont. It can be sold to others for home-cooked meals or to delis or restaurants for customers’ meals.

The same goes for meat from Vermont’s bear or moose. License holders who killed a bear during the September 1 through November 19 seasons in 2023 had until December 9 to sell its meat. And those lucky enough to draw a moose license and kill one during the October 1-7 archery season or October 21-26 regular season had until November 15 to sell its meat.

Potential Profits are Large

The quantities and potential sticker prices for those meats aren’t trivial. The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department (VFWD) calculated that hunters brought home 3.4 million venison servings from the 16,845 deer shot during the 2023 deer seasons. The VFWD also calculated that hunters derived 251,100 meals from the 837 black bears killed during 2023’s seasons; and 90,000 servings of moose from the 78 moose killed during 2023’s seasons.

Based on sale prices of meats imported from Eastern Europe and New Zealand, people pay big money for deer, bear, and moose. A two- to three-pound bear tenderloin from the European Union, for example, lists for $999.99 at the Exotic Meat Market in Montpelier, Vermont, while a 240-gram tin of canned bear meat costs $99.99. Moose and deer meats from Kiwiland aren’t cheap, either. A three-pound tenderloin from a farm-raised elk costs nearly $150, while rump roasts from farm-raised deer cost nearly $50.

And yet…Vermont hunters seldom cash in on venison from their deer, even though it’s been legal since 1961. It’s not as though the concept is foreign to the state’s outdoors community. Vermont has allowed licensed sport anglers to sell panfish for at least the past half-century. Anglers routinely carry buckets of crappies, bluegills, pumpkinseeds, yellow perch, and white perch to fish markets, talk to buyers, and walk out with money. A VFWD analysis from 1998 through 2015 found fish buyers bought 7.11 million pounds of panfish those years statewide, an annual average of 394,772 pounds. Anglers received a combined $13.18 million those 18 years, or $732,471 annually, and $1.86 per pound.

An Invisible Law

To learn why Vermont residents like peddling panfish but not vending venison, MeatEater contacted Bryce Towsley, 68, a lifelong Vermont resident who has hunted since childhood and worked as an outdoor writer for over 30 years.

But if Vermont has a venison trade, Towsley hasn’t seen it. “Honestly, I’ve never heard of that law,” he told MeatEater. “I don’t know anyone who sells venison or bear meat. We share it with friends and family, but no one sells it.”

Venison sales are seldom discussed at sport shops either, said Greg Boglioli, 62, at Vermont Field Sports in Middlebury. “I asked 10 to 12 guys at the shop, and nearly everyone assumed they couldn’t sell big-game meat,” he told MeatEater. “The one guy who tried selling some had a game warden show up at his door asking questions. We just assume we can only give it away, just like with trout, turkeys, and salmon.”

Likewise, the VFWD’s information-and-education staff seldom get asked about selling big-game meat. Maybe that’s why the VFWD never prints brochures or posts FAQs about it.

“The law is kind of an artifact, but if someone asks, we just read the law to them or send the link,” said Alison Thomas, VFWD’s outreach director. “But we probably get asked about it less than once every five years, and that’s just a guess. It’s that rare. The last time the law drew much attention was 1985, when it was amended to add wild turkeys as a species you can’t buy or sell. Vermont didn’t have wild turkeys in 1961 when the law was enacted.”

Ron Regan worked for the VFWD from 1980 through 2007, including 1999 through 2003 as its commissioner. He said he can’t recall seeing a restaurant with bear, moose, or deer meat on the menu, and he seldom discussed the topic during his 27 years with the agency. “I didn’t lose a whit of sleep over hunters selling venison,” Regan said.

Citations are Rare

Vermont’s conservation wardens seldom get asked about it, either. Of the six Vermont wardens MeatEater contacted, only a couple investigated possible violations in recent years. One was working on an active case but couldn’t discuss it.

Another warden, however, recalled a case that typifies the situation. Lieutenant Wes Butler of Middlebury, Vermont, said people attending a farmers market on opening day of waterfowl season in mid-October called to say a man was seeking donations in return for ziplock bags of fresh venison.

“He had kind of panhandler’s setup, like where a guy plays guitar on the sidewalk with his guitar case open, hoping you’ll toss in money,” Butler said. “He thought selling venison was illegal, even though archery season was open. He thought he’d work around it by asking for donations. As we talked, I realized this was all new to him, but learned he was acquainted with a guy who’s a habitual offender. It turned out his acquaintance was poaching deer, and they were cutting it up in a garage and packaging it in ziplock bags.”

Jason Batchelder, now retired, spent his 22-year law-enforcement career with the VFWD, including his final few years as its chief conservation warden. He recalled citing a violator who processed road-killed deer much of the year, froze the packaged venison, and waited until deer season to sell it as hunter-killed meat.

In another case, Batchelder got called to a home where a “despondent” man was being held after beating up his girlfriend. The man earlier had run over a deer, thrown it into the back of his pickup, and tried to sell it to someone at the home even though venison sales were illegal that time of year.

“He went to jail for 60 days for domestic violence, and the illegal transport and attempted venison sale were just add-ons,” Batchelder said.

Batchelder also recalls instances early in his career where hunter-killed venison legally reached the market and was resold. “A local restaurant chain sold venison in their deli during deer season,” he told MeatEater. “They also offered it on pizzas. That ended when the place changed owners. Some meatcutters still might resell venison after buying it from a hunter, but I doubt it’s common.”

Batchelder thinks venison sales seldom generate paper trails and true commerce. “It’s just my opinion, but I think most sales are cash deals and very much under the table,” he said. “I doubt many people want to buy deer meat, and our sales season is probably too short to sustain a market like the one for panfish.”

Batchelder also thinks most Vermonters consider deer hunting too sacred to commercialize. “We have a strong culture of giving meat to neighbors and friends,” he said. “It’s not uncommon to see people offering free venison or ground venison on social media. It’s gone in 30 seconds.”

Poachers of the Past

But Batchelder doesn’t think venison and deer hunting always enjoyed that status. Neither does John Hall, a VFWD information specialist in Montpelier. Hall, 79, has been with the agency since 1968, and recalls cases in the 1970s and ’80s where poachers killed deer with the intention of selling venison for profit.

In October 1984, the agency prosecuted five members of a notorious family in southern Vermont and Connecticut for selling and illegally transporting deer out of state. A month later, a poacher in central Vermont on the Quebec border jacklighted five whitetails and sold them to undercover conservation wardens.

Vermont’s most infamous poaching-for-profit case occurred in east-central Vermont, about 10 miles south of Barre. The day before Thanksgiving in 1972, conservation wardens began investigating two pairs of Rhode Island brothers—Leonard D. Sherman and Earl W. Sherman Jr., and Roy R. Ring and William E. Ring Jr.—for killing whitetails in woodlands between Williamstown and the town of Washington, and selling venison 220 miles to the southeast in Providence, Rhode Island.

The lead came from Rhode Island conservation wardens, who learned from at least three informants that the poachers hauled 52 deer to Providence over the previous two weeks, and had 19 hanging for sale a week earlier. The informants also said the poachers ran the same operation in November 1971. Black-market butchers were said to be paying $75 per deer, which equates to $560 today.

“We didn’t know who was buying the meat,” Hall told MeatEater. “We just knew those guys had shot a lot of deer, they were doing a lot of butchering, and they were preparing venison for sale to one or more people around Providence. I suspect there were few buyers or we would have broken up the operation earlier.”

Hall said Vermont’s deer herd was far larger in that region during the early 1970s than today. The state’s Legislature had long imposed buck-only hunting seasons, even though forest habitats were relatively young and producing abundant deer, which caused widespread overbrowsing. Not until 1979—after the herd suffered widespread malnutrition and starvation in winter 1977, causing a 30% decline in November 1978’s buck kill—did the VFWD wrangle permission from lawmakers to open antlerless hunting.

“Those guys found it easy to shoot lots of deer because deer were everywhere back then,” Hall said. “They took full advantage of that area’s high deer densities.”

A February 1978 article in Vermont’s Country Journal magazine said the four poachers stayed in a Quonset hut on land one of the Shermans owned on the Chelsea-Washington Road. Unlike nearby lands, the Shermans’ property was heavily posted.

“They sure didn’t want us in there looking around,” Hall said. “We eventually learned they were operating in the pre-dawn hours, but we never received a tip about nighttime shooting. That was frustrating. Even though they killed at least 75 deer, we didn’t get one local tip.”

Two of the wardens were so irritated by local indifference that they returned to the crime scene weeks later, stopped in a meadow, and emptied their revolvers into the air at 1 a.m. Then they drove to another meadow and emptied their guns again into the air. No lights came on in neighboring homes, and no one called in a complaint.

Pinching the Poachers

Wardens watched the property nearly 24-7 from November 24 to 28, and saw the suspects leave at 3 p.m. on November 29 to head home to Rhode Island with a snow-covered trailer. Soon after, the warden who saw the men leave found blood where the trailer backed into a snowbank and more drops on the road.

Other wardens pulled the car over 90 minutes later, 40 miles north of Massachusetts, for a routine check of the driver’s license and vehicle registration, but found nothing except snow on the trailer. They noticed the poachers found the inspection amusing, and told the wardens they were simply bringing snow home for their kids. When they couldn’t produce registration paperwork for their trailer, the wardens impounded it and cited the driver for several vehicle-related violations.

Local police detained the men while wardens returned to the Chelsea-Washington Road property to help look for evidence. They found more blood, deer hair and meat in a snow-covered trail before dark. After pulling out their flashlights, they also found a footpath into the woods that had been raked to hide bootprints. They followed the trail across a brook and soon found a recently felled evergreen tree.

When pushing the tree aside, they found 12 dead deer. They soon found 13 more deer after expanding the search. The dead deer were laid on their sides in tight rows like logs in a corduroy road—nose to butt and back to belly—with their briskets propped open with stout sticks. Of the 25 carcasses, 21 were antlerless.

Hall soon arrived to photograph the wet, snow-covered crime scene. “They hid the deer in a swampy area and covered them with boughs from spruce and balsam firs,” Hall told MeatEater. “It was a thick spruce forest, with the boughs growing low to the ground.”

When wardens learned the four Rhode Island men didn’t have Vermont hunting licenses, they ordered their arrest. The poachers were then driven back north to a nearby jail, where a judge set bail at $3,000 each.

When questioned that night, one of the Sherman brothers said they had planned to return to their camp within the week to fill an order for 50 deer. Sherman told the warden, “It’s easy hunting between 4 and 6 in the morning.” He also said friends in Rhode Island had tipped them off about wardens waiting for them at home, so they hitched on the empty trailer in hopes of embarrassing the wardens when confronted. He implied a woman who knew one of the Ring brothers probably turned them in.

When the case went to trial, the jury found the four men guilty of poaching and illegally transporting deer across state lines. The judge fined the Sherman brothers $1,250 each, and sentenced them to over 150 days in jail. Their accomplices, the Ring brothers, were fined $500 each and sentenced to over 75 days in jail.

Cultural Change…For the Better

Hall thinks locals today wouldn’t be as tight-lipped as their predecessors a half-century ago. “The culture has changed since then,” Hall said. “People today take more ownership in our natural resources. They don’t tolerate poaching deer or fish. They offer tips and report violations, and we appreciate it. We also started Operation Game Thief so people can call in complaints anonymously.”

That new attitude likely makes venison sales less attractive, too. Dave Taddei, a detective-sergeant and 12-year veteran of the VFWD, said Vermont is such a hunter-centric state that most hunters hold onto whatever meat they harvest. If someone was determined to cash in on venison, they could probably find willing markets in nearby Boston and New York City, but that’s not happening.

“That’s not to say it will never happen, but hunters keep an eye on each other, and people seem to know it’s a federal offense once venison leaves the state illegally,” Taddei told MeatEater. “We’ve always been concerned that Vermont allows the sale of internal organs from bears, which basically means the gallbladder, but that can’t leave the state, either. We’d like to end that exception because we think Vermont is the only state that allows gallbladder sales. We think we’re gaining traction to outlaw it, but currently, it’s still legal.”

Vermont is also unique in that most big-game meats donated to needy families come from road kills or illegal kills. Conservation wardens coordinate both of those sources for the state’s “Venison for Vermonters” program, which has provided over 3,400 pounds of venison since its 2020 launch.

Vermont legislator and former wildlife manager Wayne LaRoche said he opposed a recent hunter-driven venison donation proposal because he doubted the meat could be carefully tracked. “Unless every package includes a tag number, log records, and a follow-up process for tracking, I worry it would be too easy to move venison into commercial markets,” LaRoche told MeatEater. “I think I had good reason to be suspicious.”

Wild-game suppers for fund-raising events are common in Vermont, however. For instance, fire departments and other volunteer-run organizations sell tickets for meals featuring donated meat of everything that can be hunted in Vermont.

Conclusion

Vermonters, meanwhile, shrug off questions and raised eyebrows about their state’s unique fish and wildlife laws. “Whenever I’m asked why we allow selling fish and big-game meat, or why we have a gun season for northern pike, I worry we’ll increase awareness about things most people otherwise overlook,” Batchelder told MeatEater. “Are we opening Pandora’s box, and exposing opportunities to a bunch of no-goods who’ll take advantage of it? You hope not, but no matter how hard we’ve tried to get rid of those laws, they’re still in our statutes. Another factor is we’re shooting 20,000 deer statewide each fall, and we still don’t reach our management goals, so it’s hard to show the law is causing harm.”

LaRoche agreed. “I doubt we’ll get rid of those laws unless venison sales become a problem,” he said. “If butchers start stealing meat from customers and selling it, or market hunters start jacklighting deer and hauling venison to neighboring states, maybe things would change. But historically, we’ve seldom prosecuted people for violating the law.”

Feature image via John Hall.