Woods and Wildlife for your Wallet is a program that was developed in Greenup County after forestry training was identified as a need by a local community member.  A logic model was constructed by a group of local individuals and representatives from Cooperative Extension Service, Soil and Water Conservation District, Kentucky Department of Forestry and local FFA teachers. This group became a committee that formed partnerships to develop this training to educate landowners about the services and resources available to them in our community. The Woods and Wildlife for your Wallet program has become a connector between landowners and experts/educators in the field of forestry/wildlife in Greenup and surrounding counties. The University of Kentucky Nutrition Education Program (NEP) recently released a series of resources aimed at helping the state’s most vulnerable citizens learn how to prepare wild game. The series, titled Cook Wild Kentucky, features numerous recipes with some of the state’s most popular wild game including venison, rabbit, fish, frog, dove and duck. The Greenup County Family and Consumer Sciences program hosted a concurrent session on Cook Wild Kentucky with recipes, samples, and information related to wild game.  The Cook Wild Kentucky session was attended by 60 participants of the Woods and Wildlife for your Wallet program.  

 Many families in Kentucky use various types of wild game as a primary protein source for providing nutritious meals in their home.  Wild game provides a nourishing source of nutrition, but should be preserved properly and safely as a protein source for families.  Participants who visited the Cook Wild session learned about topics including various methods of processing wild game, caring for wild game in the kitchen, and cooking wild game.  Handling of wild game from field to table can make a difference in quality, flavor, and taste. The importance of temperature control was a focus of education in effort to illustrate the importance of keeping food safe to prevent food borne illness.   

As part of the concurrent session a cooking demonstration using the Cook Wild resources was incorporated to help demonstrate how to safely prepare wild game.  Participants were able to see and taste a recipe using venison as the protein source during the session.  During this portion of the program the focus was devoted to various cooking tips for preparing different types of wild game.  Wild game is a relatively lean type of meat due to the active nature of the species.   Participants learned various methods for cooking and preparing wild game without sacrificing any flavor or quality.  

All participants were surveyed and the results indicated that 70 percent of the individuals plan to implement a wildlife management change they learned from the program.   The surveys revealed that participants all will implement one or more safe wildlife cooking practices in their home this upcoming year. Participants stated they enjoyed learning nutritious ways to prepare wild game instead of mainly being deep fried high calorie recipes.  The Woods and Wildlife for Your Wallet event brought forth a new opportunity for participants to be introduced to the Family & Consumer Sciences Extension Program.  Many of the participants were non-traditional to FCS Extension and now have a broader basis of information regarding what the Family & Consumer Science Extension Program covers.