The territorial government wants to increase consumption of Yukon domestic game meat.

Under a proposal by the Department of Environment, the law allowing for the sale of elk and bison, for instance, would be expanded to allow local grocery stores and restaurants to purchase and resell homegrown wild meat.

As the law stands now, only licensed game farmers can sell meat from their game farms.

If a local restaurant has elk on the menu, or if the street-side vendor is turning bison sausage on the grill, the meat would have had to be federally inspected and purchased outside the Yukon.

The proposal would allow a territorial meat inspector to inspect and approve the sale of local game farm meat to local retailers and restaurants for resale.

Inspection supervisor Kevin Bowers of the Yukon's agricultural branch believes the existing regulation limits the ability of local game farmers to expand by not allowing the market opportunity.

The regulation goes back to the days when the focus for game farmers was raising seed stock for resale to other game farms here and down south, he said.

Not a lot of thought was put into how the regulation might someday limit the farmer's ability to supply game meat locally on a commercial basis.

'There are opportunities, in my view, big opportunities, for Yukon game farmers to market their product to not only the Yukon, but to the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of visitors that travel through the Yukon every year,' said Bowers.

Main Street restaurateur Yvonne Jack not only welcomes the regulation change, but suggests it's high time it happens.

For her upcoming wild meat extravaganza on New Year's Eve, Jack has had to order pretty much everything except the lake trout from outside the Yukon, even though elk and bison are raised locally.

'And there was another $300 to ship it up here, when we have them running around in our back yard,' she said in an interview Tuesday afternoon.

Jack said bison is a regular on the menu for Chiefs Steakhouse, but it is purchased through a local butcher who has to get it from suppliers Outside.

Changing the regulation, and allowing for the game farmers to wholesale their product to other retailers will be a good thing for everybody, she said.

Sam Jurovich, owner of the Porter Creek Super A and Bigway Foods in Granger said Tuesday, 'If there was a local product here that was government approved ... and there was a local demand, and I think there would be, we would be interested, definitely.'

The same goes for Stacey Amann of Stacey's Butcher Block in Porter Creek, though Amann added the local game meat would have to compare with the price and quality he gets from his suppliers now.

To encourage more local production of domestic and game meat by Yukon farms, the government purchased a mobile slaughterhouse.

Bowers said in its first full year of operation this year, the abattoir has so far processed 20 cattle, three bison and one elk.

The proposed change to the Wildlife Act was one of 15 circulated for public comment earlier this fall.

The Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board concluded its review of the proposed changes last week.

It will be forwarding its recommendations to Premier Dennis Fentie in his capacity as Environment minister. Fentie has 60 days to respond from the day he receives the board letter.