|
Game
farms provide ideal conditions
to spread chronic wasting disease
By
David Stalling
for Headwaters News
Before fierce flames began scorching their way toward Denver, chronic
wasting disease dominated Colorado headlines, accompanied by photos
of state officials clad in protective clothing, incinerating carcasses
of deer and elk.
The disease came as a shock to most folks. But for many wildlife
professionals, it was a frightful prediction come true — an
inevitable consequence of the proliferation of game ranching.
The first time I saw elk behind a fence was in 1993, at the Big
Velvet Elk Ranch southeast of Darby, Mont. The emaciated-looking
animals were bunched up in a small, muddy pasture, tags dangling
from their ears, gathered around feed troughs of alfalfa.
It might be anthropomorphic, but they seemed to lack the dignity
and spirit I have come to admire in their wild brethren — like
detainees behind bars, their freedom and wildness taken away.
I intuitively knew something was wrong, an emotional response evoked
by my love for wild elk and the wild country they inhabit. But I
couldn't quite put words to the feelings, never mind offer any factual,
science-based condemnation.
Then I read "Commercialization and Wildlife Management: Dancing
With the Devil," an anthology edited by Nova Scotia scientist
Alex Hawley. The most poignant prose of the book, for me, is a chapter
written by Valerius Geist, professor emeritus at the University
of Calgary, renowned elk and deer biologist, and longtime critic
of game ranching.
He presents a clear history of North America's distinct system of
wildlife management, based on ecological principles, in which wildlife
is a public trust, belonging to no one, protected from commercial
markets in meat, hide and other parts.
This public system benefits all wildlife, from grizzlies and pine
martens to lynx and bull trout, for the benefit of all people. It's
a system derived from hard-fought battles, by the likes of Theodore
Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell, in response to decimation wrought
by unregulated market hunting and demands for parts of bison, elk,
deer and other wildlife.
Texas was the only state that went its own way, fencing in both
native wildlife and introduced exotics, creating a patchwork of
artificial worlds where people pay to kill fenced, fed, genetically
altered critters whose heads, when hanging in trophy rooms, resemble
their wild cousins.
Now, the Texas way is spreading. The game ranching industry has
exploded in the past decade, with hundreds of deer and elk farms
established in Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Saskatchewan, Wisconsin
and elsewhere.
Have an opinion? Join
the discussion in this week's forum.
Or click
here to view all our forums.
click
here for a printer-friendly version of this column
 |
 |
Montana
biologists warned us
about game farms 10 years ago
By
Greg Lakes, editor
Headwaters News
June 19, 2002
A decade ago, Montana wildlife officials became alarmed
at was then the up-and-coming trend of raising elk within fences.
They had little regulatory authority to restrict game farms, except
to attach fairly minimal requirements to the required state license.
And they had more dire predictions than hard science to back their
foreboding.
Their fears have come true in Colorado, not Montana, but that's
small comfort, given the distribution of potentially infected elk
among game farmers and the apparent spread of the disease in the
wild.
Back then, Montana biologists were more extensive than the same
warnings now going around belatedly in Colorado. They said confining
ungulate herds would almost certainly incubate and spread disease,
and they also worried that escaped exotics could dilute the gene
pool of wild species.
Their fears were exacerbated by the often-petulant attitudes of
some of the key figures in the blossoming game farm industry, including
a Darby-area operator who quickly chalked up a series of infractions.
As did David Stalling, as he writes above, I first saw captive elk
on that Darby game farm, as part of dozens of stories I wrote for
the region's newspaper. Montana officials cited Colorado as the
example of where they didn't want Montana to go. I interviewed and
quoted Valerius Geist
at length.
Then, the disease of concern was tuberculosis, and Montana biologist
warned that Alberta had recently exterminated thousands of elk because
of an outbreak on game farms there.
The health threat to humans was publicly downplayed, both there
and here, although more than one state biologist cocked an eyebrow
in skepticism.
The more immediate concern was the release of introduced species,
particularly red deer, the European elk, into the wild, where they
could breed with Montana's wild herd in an undetermined and indeterminate
genetic experiment.
And not long after the controversy began, an Oregon lab confirmed
red deer genes in a Montana elk taken by a hunter, though the source
and the upshot was never ascertained.
As the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks stepped up pressure
on game farms to build double fences and try to cut down the number
of inevitable escapes, game farm owners responded by finding more
sympathetic supervisors.
They convinced state officials to shift oversight and licensing
of game farms to the Department of Agriculture, where captive elk
were deemed alternative livestock and considered another source
of ranch revenue, instead of the Department of Fish, Wildlife and
Parks, where they were considered a threat to the species and the
hunting industry.
Gradually, long after I left that job, the balance of power shifted,
more because of declining prices for antler velvet and public outrage
at high-priced canned hunts than for concern for the wild animals
that are so symbolic of Montana.
That Darby operator is still
in court. And Colorado's misfortune has likely ensured that
Montana will never put its elk at such risk again ... if it's not
too late.
|
|
|
|
