I’M NOT SURE I WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOES ON AT COMMENTARY’S COCKTAIL PARTIES: Free the Meat.

Okay, my cheap joke aside, Noah Rothman is spot-on:

In Western New Jersey, a population-dense state with an equally high concentration of whitetail deer, the problem is an increasingly urgent one. “Sustainable levels of deer should be 5 to 15 individuals per square mile,” one local arboretum fretted in 2021. “New Jersey averages 112 per square mile, with some areas as high as 270.” And yet, deer concentration levels, their acute and injurious effects on the environment, and the threat they pose to life and property exist alongside a bewildering phenomenon: They are positively delicious.

The “star” of the menu at Washington D.C.’s Café Berlin every autumn, an NPR profile of the restaurant’s fare read, is venison. Loin, ribs, chops, tartar—take your pick. “It’s food that takes your mind back to old European castles, where you can imagine eating like aristocracy,” the piece gushes. But you can’t buy deer meat at your local grocer or often even at upscale food purveyors. This NPR reporter found venison loin selling for a staggering $40 per pound. And about 85 percent of all deer meat sold in American restaurants is imported from New Zealand.

It’s not impossible to get your hands on local venison—even professionally prepared fare. But you’re not going to pay $40 per pound. You’re not going to pay anything at all, in fact. Where local venison is available, it is in charity kitchens and food pantries.

Recreational hunters are not allowed to sell their kill for a variety of reasons.

Read the whole thing.