Call it recycling.
Many hunters in Duluth's bow hunt for deer donate the hearts from their deer to anatomy classes at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Dr. Lyle Shannon of the UMD biology department teaches an undergraduate human anatomy class for students headed for medical school, dentistry, pharmacy and other health-care fields, as well as to biology majors. Last year, hunters donated about 35 hearts to him, Shannon said.
"With fresh hearts, students were able to examine a lot of fine details that are nearly impossible to see using commercially preserved hearts," Shannon said.
The sharing of deer hearts began when one of Shannon's students, a bow hunter in the Duluth hunt, offered to bring in hearts from the deer he shot, Shannon said.
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In the past, his class has relied on commercially preserved sheep hearts. Those hearts shrink and lose their flexibility in the preservation process, making them difficult to dissect, Shannon said. Students working with the sheep hearts are hard-pressed to find all the small structures within them and cannot develop an appreciation for the working of the valves and the elasticity of a fresh heart, he said.
Shannon contacted Brian Borkholder of the Arrowhead Bowhunters Alliance, who keeps records for the hunt. Borkholder now puts out a call for hearts to the hunt's 385 hunters when he updates hunt records.
"It's yet another service to our community that bow hunters can participate in," Borkholder said.
"We are certainly appreciative of the efforts of all the hunters who took the time to bring hearts home and throw them in the freezer for us," Shannon said.
