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Hunters fill freezers and food banks despite challenging season

Hunters across northeastern and central PA are taking full advantage of hunting season, which means deer are piling up at a family-owned processor in Luzerne County.

BACK MOUNTAIN, Pa. — Grinders are in high gear at Wren's Taxidermy and Deer Processing in the Back Mountain. As owner, Lance Wren works to fill the freezers of hunters across Luzerne County, as he has for 22 years.

Wren told us he spent nearly 17 hours a day breaking down, chopping up, and processing nearly 800 deer last year.

"Probably since COVID, we've done more and more [meat] each year, and we're gonna pass those numbers again. There's no shortage of guys shooting deer," said Wren.

That number is pretty similar this season, but the deer are trickling in a little slower than in years past due to the colder weather.

"When it's warmer, they rush to get here. Now, they're not in such a rush. We had a lot of deer come in yesterday that were shot on Saturday," he added.

But the one thing he is seeing an uptick in, "This year we're seeing a lot of women. Not coming with their husbands, but coming by themselves. My wife and I talk about it we couldn't believe the amount of women. All by themselves they come out by themselves, dragged the deer out, and we help them, but it's way more than what we've seen over the years."

Wren says this year the focus for hunters isn't as much the taxidermy, but instead, the meat.

"It's much cheaper and much easier than going to the grocery store. So, we have some people that bring in four or five deer for a family, and they tell us they don't buy beef at all because it's just too expensive at the store," the owner added.

But with skyrocketing prices, it's also made it harder for people to donate. Wren participates in the state's Hunters Sharing the Harvest venison donation program, which goes to the Weinberg CEO Foodbank. But he says so far this year donations have been down.

"We normally give them thousands of pounds of meat every year. But we don't have anywhere near what we normally do," said Wren.

While there's about a week and a half left in rifle deer season, Wren's hoping there's some hunters out there who will be filling the plates of those in need too.

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