A prominent metro meat processor is under investigation, suspected of illegally selling the venison from deer that hunters have killed, the Pioneer Press has learned.

Circle Pines Sausage Haus is the target of an investigation by the Department of Natural Resources that has lasted more than a year and reached into the lives of hundreds of local hunters, according to officials and documents.

While the case doesn’t appear to involve anything resembling a statewide black market, it touches on gray areas of the law of wild game processing likely not well understood by some of the state’s nearly half a million deer hunters.

An attorney for Sausage Haus’ owner said his client never intended to break any laws and believed he had been law-abiding for the past year.

No charges have been filed against Sausage Haus or its…