Hides for Habitat brings benefits to ...

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Hides for Habitat brings benefits to Minnesota youth, environment
Written by Glen Schmitt, St Cloud Times outdoors writer
Dec. 7, 2013

So you shoot a deer, bring it home and go about the business of processing it. The result is a bounty of venison for the freezer and a deer hide that many hunters choose to donate, but they might not fully understand what that donation is used for.

In 1985, the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association (MDHA) began its Hides for Habitat program. It’s designed to take donated deer hides from hunters across the state, market those hides and use the funds generated for habitat projects and youth programs.

Most hunters are familiar with the blaze orange drop-off bins placed at registration sites, bait shops and gas stations throughout the deer season. By placing their deer hide in those bins after the hunt, they’ve helped create a revenue source that’s exceeded $4.5 million since the Hides for Habitat program started.

Volunteer work
According to Mark Johnson, the MDHA executive director, volunteers from within the state’s 62 MDHA chapters drive the program. Before this hunting season, more than 800,000 hides have been collected with 100 percent of the proceeds from the sale of those hides going back into the state’s natural resources or programs to support it.

“There’s a lot of effort, pride and sweat involved with the Hides for Habitat program among our volunteers,” Johnson said. “We have approximately 45 (MDHA) chapters participating and they each have between six and 20 drop-off sites to take care of.”

That work involves putting the drop-off bins in place just prior to the firearms deer season and routinely picking up those hides during the hunt. Chapter volunteers then take the hides to their local storage facility, salt and stack them, and eventually get them into the hands of a fur buyer. They also have to pick up the drop-off bins, but not until the muzzleloader season ends.

There seems to be some correlation between the deer harvest and the number of hides the MDHA receives at its drop-off sites. Johnson pointed out that when the state’s deer kill is down, so are the number of hides they collect.

“That seems to be the case this year with fewer deer being shot,” he said. “Some of our (drop-off) sites are down as much as 50 percent.”

Funds from hides
But a quality hide, one that’s a good size and doesn’t have any holes, fetches up to $9 each from fur buyers. Smaller hides or hides that are damaged get less money, but the funds from every hide turn out to be worth much more than the purchase price.

By pairing funds from the original sale of hides with the MDHA State Habitat Committee funds or other state-funded programs, a $9 hide can be leveraged into as much as 10 times its initial value. In essence, that $9 hide can be worth as much as $90 that can be used toward habitat and youth programs.

“Fifteen percent of it goes to the State Habitat Committee, which is used to fund programs across the state,” Johnson said. “The other 85 percent stays with the local chapters, so it stays in the area the hides were collected.”

From 1998 through 2011, the ability to roll deer hide sales into a ten-fold turnaround has created about $13 million in funds that have been used on a wide range of projects.

While improving habitat and public hunting land is paramount, many youth programs also have benefited from Hides for Habitat.

Johnson said Hides for Habitat supports the National Archery in Schools program to the tune of $20,000 to $25,000 annually. It also funds firearms safety courses, allowing thousands of kids across the state each year to become certified hunters.

The MDHA’s Forkhorn Youth Summer Camps, used to instill a greater appreciation for the state’s natural resources among children, have grown immensely since they began in 1985 thanks to money generated through Hides for Habitat.

The MDHA works with eight facilities around the state to implement summer camp sessions for youths age 11 to 17. Johnson said thousands of kids have attended Forkhorn Camps and they’ve been able to enjoy outdoor experiences, including hunting and shooting sports activities.

“It seems to keep growing every year; we had over 900 kids attend Forkhorn Camps this year alone, and those hides are a big reason for it,” Johnson said. “Our two main focuses with Hides for Habitat are to expose youths to hunting and to make sure we have quality public hunting land for everyone to use.”