I saw a snippet in one of our shooting magazines that Europe is revising,updating and generally tightening up the regulations concerning the handling of game carcasses ect and their desposel in the commercial food chain.



Apparently this is due to be implmented into the UK early next year after FACE UK, BASC and certain Government Bodies have discussed various issues and the implications of those changes.



Does anybody have any idea what the changes are likely to be or their impact?



On the grape vine, I have heard it includes the upgrading of larder facilities including seperate cold rooms for carcasses in the skin and out, with no exemptions for carcasses to be seperated by "process/time".



Another area is the adaption of refridgerated transport for the carcass from the field to the cold store and again from the larder to the game dealer/buyer if either of these journeys is over a certain period (1 hour was mentioned)



These changes are said to apply to even the smallest carcass "handling facilities" ie us "amature" stalkers not just fully fledged game dealers..



Anybody know anything concrete about all this?



Regards,



Pete

This reglementation already exists in France. It applies to game sold to the public. Also a veterinarian certificate should be delivered "soon" after the kill. I haven't seen it enforced yet, as all the game is shared between the hunters most of the time.

Over here most of us sell our game to a game dealer. Refrigeration within 1 hour is not necessarily unacheivable but is bad news for carcass quality. The carcass should cool naturaly not be chilled the instant it is shot. Vet certificates are normaly gained by the game dealer for export. All game dealers have daily attending vets for this purpose nowadays.

Traceability is likely to be the main part of this legislation - no bad thing IMHO as it might be harder for poachers to get a market.

Bobby,

Trading or giving away venison is another area that is apparently being tightened up in that basically anyone processing or handling vension for a third party will be covered not just people doing it "commercially"...Again this is only rumour..

1894,

Although I agree with you in a sense, i gather what the yare trying to regulate is someone like myself who travels with their carcasses several hours...If this goes into effect I will be forced to use a dealer up in Scotland rather than bring them home. I have never lost a carcass travelling back because of excessive temperatures but I guess in theory it is possible.

All I hope is that input from FACE UK/BASC ect will ensure that any change in regulations will at least be reasonably practical and aimed at where there is a problem with perhaps exemptions for stalkers who only have a low through put of carcasses per year.

Regards,

Pete

Slightly off topic, but I heard of a commercial shoot down in Eng that wasn't 'bothering' with game meat and dumped all shot birds in a ditch and covered them with a up when it got full.
Does this sort of thing happen often, or is it just an exageration (a hunter told me about it so I doubt it was just greenie bullocks)?