Since ancient times, the Mari people consider dishes made of elk and wild boar to be a national product. The emblem of Mari El is not in vain decorated with the image of an elk – they have always been found in the Mari forests. And for today the number of elks in the republic is about 6604, the wild boars is about 1119 heads (Smirnov S. Mari El conducted animal census // news from 28.03.2018. URL: https://potokmedia.ru/news/39473/). Despite the fact that since ancient times people have been eating wild animals, systematic, purposeful study of their meat has not been conducted until recently.The purpose of the research was to conduct a veterinary and sanitary examination of wild animal’s meat: elk and wild boar and to study its organoleptic, structural and mechanical characteristics and chemical composition in comparison with meat obtained from domesticated animals: beef and pork. Research of samples of meat of wild and domestic animals included microscopy of bacterioscopic samples for establishing veterinary and sanitary safety of meat, photometry of extracts from meat to establish the fractional composition and mass fraction of proteins, assessment of organoleptic characteristics and morphological composition, rheological examination of muscles. The veterinary and sanitary examination confirmed the high quality of samples and their food safety. Meat of wild animals has a darker color, which is due to the content of more sarcoplasmic protein myoglobin, responsible for the color of meat. Well-developed muscle tissue of wild animals is rich in full-fledged myofibrillar proteins and contains fewer inferior connective tissue proteins compared to beef and fat compared to pork. Structural and mechanical properties of the meat of elk and wild boar confirmed the greater strength of muscle fibers in terms of adhesion, limiting shear stress and viscosity of minced meat in comparison with meat of domestic animals. Conducted research of meat of different kinds confirmed the safety of samples for the consumer in terms of the level of sanitary condition, rheological expertise and high-grade protein composition.