What Game Animals are considered edible?

[MI_Bowhunter]

Primarily I won't shoot what I will not eat.    I have however taken a few nuisance animals over the years.

I also tend not to eat carnivorous animals. Pretty much anything else I'll try at least once.

[Flesner]

No way am I eatin' a Starling or some of the stuff I've seen Mussato eat that he got out of a foil pouch!!

Tom, I thought everything north of I-80 was Cook County, also!   :D

[Doc Nock]

While living in MT, an associate would follow the "coyote killin" contests and grab up backstraps off yodel dogs... made em into sausage and sold it..."told folks...think of it as "recycled sheep""  He sold heck outa the sausage! It ate ok!    

Does memory serve me the furtrapers used to covet beaver tail as they were "fat poor" in their winter diet and the tail was loaded? I forget how it was made...but peeled skin off after roasting in fire comes to mind...  

In the day, there were companies makin and selling chocolate covered ants, grasshoppers, roaches, worms... I ate ants and grasshoppers.. never the others...      :eek:  

Grandad made us kids eat what we shot w/ slingshots or .22's till he told me to shoot a "corn theiving crow". He gave me a "bye" on that one. And rats in the chicken coop...they went to the manure pile.

[ChristopherO]

I've skinned enough fox and coyotes to know I wouldn't eat those smelly things!  But I will lift their hide if it is good.
Groundhogs are greasy and strong to eat, at least the old ones are, and if they are tearing up a soybean field I have no compunction to dropping them back down into their holes.

[Jason R. Wesbrock]

Originally posted by Tom Mussatto:

I should have known better. I doubt there is a single squirrel hunter in all of Cook County. Do they even have trees there?

They had a coyote at Navy Pier a few years ago. But I think the subway rats are the only real big game there.   :D

[GBTG]

What about Grizzlies. Whenever I see them hunted they pack out the hide and head but no meat. Are they inedible ?

[Rufus]

Crow ain't much fittin' to eat but I sure get to eat a lot of it sometimes. When it comes to something good, Axis deer can't be beat in my opinion.

[Bonebuster]

I hope I`m never hungry enough to eat a coyote.
And possum? Doesn`t sound too good to me.

But then, some of us eat hot dogs, and if we knew what was really in them, we would have to at least pause and think about it.

If the Michigan economy gets much worse, possum and coyote may start sounding better.

[Shawn Leonard]

I have eaten about everything that I have killed at one time or another except coyote and fox. I have had beaver and it was very good, I had it another time and it was lousy. Shawn

[Gene Roberts]

Usually on my side of the Mason-Dixon line everything is edible.I've heard of people eating wildcat liver.

[BrianP]

Possum?  Wouldn't touch one.  As a kid, I saw one crawl out of the stomach of a dead horse (and it was dead for a long time).  A lot of things got my curiosity about "I wonder what that would taste like?"  Possum not one of them...

[electric blues]

Down in jawja, its all good to eat. Hell, I didn't know until a while ago that if you kill a black bear your supposed to eat it. I've heard of coon, possums, and bout everything being eaten. Never coyotes, foxes or bobcats though.

I don't see whats so weird about eating other animals. Its not like their is a rule stating that deer are the only animal to eat. They are just one of the biggest, and tastiest.

[Mike Orton]

Years ago I went through US Army Jungle Survival school at Ft Sherman Panama....

#1 lesson; If it's got hair on it"s A$$ it's edible.  

#2 lesson if it comes down to eating a "3 toed sloth" or dying, consider dying as the better option.  All other animals are table fare.

[bjohnson]

everything has a recipe

[S. Brant Osborn]

Grandpa would catch a possum live and keep him in a cage on top of the house feeding him to fatten him up and clean him out.  I am sure we ate it there as kids but would not today unless I was in a bad bind!

He would also crack squirrel heads and pick out the brains for me whie I sat at his feet when I was About 4 or 5 years old.  Cooked mind you!

[Gatekeeper]

Now that you mention that, I remember my grandma telling me that my great grandpa use to eat squirrel brains.

Thanks for all the comments. I have really enjoyed this thread.

[Mike Vines]

I shot a porcupine 2 seasons ago, and my rule is...If I shoot it, I eat it.  Well, I'll just say I will not be shooting anymore porcupines. Funny part of the story is that My oldest who was 5 at the time asked me if he had just ate the butt when he had a bite.  LOL  I still laugh when I think of that one.

[FrankM]

You can eat most insects and arachnids too. Not that you'd want to.

[lpcjon2]

I think it depends on the trailer park.Just kidden

[bawana bowman]

All animals are edible, just not necessarily palatable.
I use to eat squirrel brains and eggs often for breakfast in South Carolina.
I've probably eaten as many strange to this country foods as Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods on Travel Channel.
I'm sure if you look hard enough You can find some country where anything you can think of would be considered table fare.