The Impact of Premortality Stress on Some Quality Parameters of Roe Deer, Wild Boar, and Red Deer Meat

Abstract

The specifics of meat production from free-ranging animals include the killing of animals in the wild with firearms. This type of uncontrolled killing sometimes leads to the phenomenon that the game does not die immediately but after a certain time from the shot to death, which may ultimately affect the quality of the meat. During one hunting year on free-ranging red deer (Cervus elaphus) (RD), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) (RoD), and wild boar (Sus scrofa) (WB), the effect of time from shot to death on final pH, water-holding capacity (WHC), water content, and colour (L*, a*, b*) was investigated. All analyses were performed on Musculus biceps femoris (BF). After shooting, the animals were divided into two categories (A = time from shot to death ≤ 1 min; B = time from shot to death > 1 min). In RD, group B had significantly lower (p < 0.05) water content. In RoD, group B had significantly lower (p < 0.05) values of L* and b*. In WB, group B had significantly lower (p < 0.05) L* value and significantly higher (p < 0.05) pH value. The study proves that in BF of the three studied game species, the time extension from shot to death significantly affects the final water content values in RD, L* and b* in RoD and pH and L * in WB.

Cause and Effect Analysis between Influencing Factors Related to Environmental Conditions, Hunting and Handling Practices and the Initial Microbial Load of Game Carcasses

“…The next step in the hunting chain is to shoot and kill the game, which represents a very individual scenario for each animal, resulting in the differences in identifying the potential impact factor on the IML as stated above. The parameters used in literature to describe the shooting and killing process qualitatively are the shooting accuracy [ 5 , 6 ], number of shots [ 6 ], impact energy or caliber of ammunition used [ 5 , 6 ], pre-mortem stress of game [ 33 ], shooting distance [ 11 ] or escape distance [ 16 , 34 ]. However, it has hardly been confirmed if and how these conditions influence the bacterial load.…”

Microbial load of rinsed and unrinsed body cavities of roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) on the killing day and after cold storage: A preliminary investigation

“…Beside the rinsing process, there are several unknown factors that can affect the initial ML. In addition to the influence of environmental or handling factors on bacterial load (Branciari et al, 2020), the impact of premortal stress on pH, water holding capacity, water content, and color of roe deer carcasses has been shown to be an influencing factor (Tomljanović et al, 2022).…”

Cranial Morphology of Lithuanian Indigenous Wattle Pigs and Their Hybrids with Wild Boar

“…Game meat, including wild boar meat, is considered a delicacy and of great quality [20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. It is known that game meat consumption is unequal in different countries.…”