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Western Perspective:
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Debate on domestic cervidae operations
has not only quieted, it's all but disappeared |
By Nathaniel Judd Hoffman
for Headwaters News
May 2, 2007 |
Perhaps the lack of any comments
to my earlier Headwaters News Western Perspective
column is telling.
When Idaho’s 2007 Legislative session began,
the domestic elk debate grabbed headlines and
filled hearing rooms. But as the session wore
on, it became apparent that most of the people
filling the hearing rooms were elk breeders.
Very few sportsmen showed up to testify, either
for or against the myriad elk-related bills.
Now that the session is over, domestic elk, and
specifically “shooter bull” operations,
are again relegated to the back pages.
Douglas Schleis, publisher of the Wild Idaho News,
one of the papers I write for, likens the “shooter
bull” debate Idaho may or may not still
be having to the 1996 ballot initiative that attempted
to ban bear baiting and hunting bears with hounds.
“It was similar to that in that the sportsmen
stayed quiet for a while until they saw the perceived
threat,” Schleis told me. “And then
it was a direct threat to hunting. Because there’s
not a perceived threat to their right to go out
and hunt deer this fall… they’re not
going to be that excited.”
It appears that discussions over how and when
to launch an initiative to ban private elk hunting
preserves in Idaho are still ongoing. But none
of the groups that stood up for more regulation
of the domestic elk industry during the legislative
session are standing firmly behind an initiative
drive now.
The Idaho Sportsmen’s Caucus Advisory Council,
or ISCAC, an organization made up of members of
some 30 different hunting and fishing groups across
the state, took the lead during the session, issuing
position papers and “Camo Memos” to
lawmakers.
Though some members of the ISCAC are talking about
an initiative, no one has taken the lead and no
ballot language has been made public.
In 1996 there was an attempt to end the use of
dogs and bait in hunting bears. A hunting ethics
discussion ensued and a majority of Idaho hunters
decided that the proposed ban was an attack on
hunting in general.
They defeated the bear initiative at the polls.
Now another, more subtle ethical debate is in
the works.
Do Idaho hunters feel that shooting private animals
that are fenced on private ranches is a proper
form of hunting? Or do they feel that the privatization
of hunting is also an attack on Idaho’s
“hunting heritage”?
Schleis, who opposes shooter-bull operations and
is not shy about saying so on the editorial pages
of his paper, says that the general non-hunting
public and hunters do see eye to eye on this one.
“[Hunters] only have to prove what the public
already knows and that is shooting a pen raised
animal off a corn pile is just morally wrong and
not ethically sound to any hunting,” he
said.
“I do believe that once it’s on the
ballot it’s easy for them to check the “no”
box. Or the “yes” box depending on
how it's worded,” Schleis said.
But it has to get to the ballot box first.
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| Rex Rammell, former elk rancher, standing
under Idaho's capitol dome after helping defeat an elk
regulation bill. |
Escaped
elk from Idaho game ranch heated up
legislative debate, but only one law passed |
| Written
and Photographed by Nathaniel Judd Hoffman
for Headwaters News
April 23, 2007
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In the fall
of 2002 I crouched behind a leafy sapling, eight yards
above a game trail and heard a crunching sound the likes
of which I had never before heard.
Then I saw the antlers.
Antlers never look that big through binoculars. I let
out a low, practiced whistle, which may have sounded
like a wheeze. Or a heart popping out of a chest.
I was in one of my favorite spots in the world, in the
central Idaho mountains.
That fall, I was still learning what elk looked like.
And how they moved, what they excrete, and how the 70-lb.
draw on my bow feels as light as a guitar string during
the rut.
Fast forward five years: I am now a reporter covering
the Idaho Legislature for the Boise Weekly as well as
the Wild Idaho News, a hunting and fishing paper here.
Another new creature has entered my consciousness: domestic
cervidae, the scientific name for the three different
even-toed ungulate species that Idaho allows on game
farms. That is, Elk, reindeer and fallow deer.
“When I first started here, I had no idea what
cervidae were,” the chairman of Idaho’s
Senate Agricultural Affairs Committee Tom Gannon likes
to say.
By now, most Idahoans are familiar with the term.
Last fall, anywhere from 63 to 140 domesticated elk
escaped from an East Idaho elk ranch owned by large
animal veterinarian Rex Rammell.
This event was the first time I considered the impacts
of game farms, but game farm politics in the West go
back more than 30 years, when Wyoming banned the business
in 1975.
The larger debate stretches back more than a century
to President Theodore Roosevelt, who railed against
the “professional market hunter,” in the
late 19th Century.
But if the escape of the elk from Rammell’s game
farm last fall put game farming on Idaho’s politics
radar screen, three months in the Idaho Legislature
made it clear who is holding the radar gun.
At least 10 bills appeared this year that attempt to
regulate Idaho’s cervidae industry. None were
passed into law. Elk ranchers put forth a huge lobbying
effort that scored them exactly what they wanted: the
status quo.
This came to the dismay of many elk hunters, who feel
elk ranching threatens wild herds and depletes the goodwill
American hunters have carefully cultivated through recent
history.
The problem, according to state Sen. David Langhorst,
co-chairman of Idaho’s Legislative Sportsmen’s
caucus, is that hunters and ranchers do not always speak
the same language.
“It was clear in the Agriculture Committee that
it’s like sportsmen are speaking a foreign language,”
Langhorst said.
It is rare that you will hear anyone in the Idaho State
Department of Agriculture speak about an elk. They always
refer to cervidae. They “administer the domestic
cervidae program,” a purely agricultural pursuit.
In the eyes of the state, elk ranches are the same type
of business as cattle ranches.
And much of the public seems to agree.
At Boise’s downtown farmer’s market browsers
can pick up sample farmed elk sausage on a stick. Elk
meat is a growing niche market within agriculture. Elk
have many by-products including antlers, antler velvet
that is used in natural remedies and meat.
It’s a niche that small operators can turn to
and find eager, local demand.
The nationally broadcast public radio program Living
on Earth aired a story in February, in the midst of
Idaho’s legislative debate, that put elk ranching
into a broader “foodie” perspective.
“I don't think I've talked to a single chef yet
that wants to limit the amount of food that we can provide
to our customers, prominent Boise chef Randy King told
the radio reporter. “I have not yet spoken to
a chef yet that wanted to say, ‘yeah, ban elk
ranching in the state.’ Not a single one.
But there is another niche elk ranchers fill. Paid hunts
on game farms bring the highest return on investment
for elk farmers.
Few people actually call them hunts. Hunters generally
call them “shooter bull” operations or “canned
hunts,” and the elk ranchers in Idaho have taken
to calling them “harvest ranches.”
But either way, the people who pay thousands of dollars
to shoot a humongous elk penned behind a fence –
many of them visitors from out of state– think
they are going elk hunting.
Sportsmen and women and the lawmakers pushing elk industry
regulation tried to get the hunting ethics message across
to the public rather than focusing on the disease risk
often associated with elk ranching.
The one related bill that did get through Idaho’s
Statehouse this year bans the use of Internet-based
remote controlled guns for hunting. The ethics behind
this piece of legislation were easy to grasp, but its
connection to the larger hunting ethics debate was never
made explicit.
Though they supported full regulation of the elk industry,
the Idaho Conservation League and other environmental
groups did not have a dog in the fight as they walked
the fine line between land conservationists and hunter
conservationists.
Until 1994, game farming in Idaho was controlled by
the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. The farms were
monitored by wildlife experts who took a habitat-level
view of disease and were concerned about protecting
wild herds.
What was then called the Idaho Venison Council successfully
lobbied to turn control of the industry over to the
Department of Agriculture. In the last decade, elk producers
have lobbied the Legislature time and again, effectively
paring down regulation of their farms and ranches to
the point that the Department of Agriculture cannot
even issue licenses to them any more.
Bills to ban importation of domestic cervidae, ban high
-fence hunting on private elk ranches, ban elk farming
on state land and anything else remotely smelling of
a ban, including a moratorium, were quickly tossed.
The only elk bill that survived the first parliamentary
volleys in the session that just ended would have restored
this licensing.
In September of last year, after the elk escape, then-Gov.
Jim Risch took drastic measures to contain the damage.
He authorized an open hunt for any of the escaped elk
found in the wild, called for a ban on “shooter
bull” operations, and threw his significant political
weight behind tougher licensing of game farms.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brady held
a press conference at the Boise Zoo and called for an
end to “canned hunts” in Idaho.
GOP candidate and now Gov. Otter waffled a bit and then
weighed in with a statement defending private property
rights, and calling for, “dramatic new controls
to be put in place to protect the wild herds and increase
public confidence and trust in the elk operations.”
When the bill finally appeared a month into the session,
after much speculation, it was labeled an industry bill.
The Department of Agriculture’s new director Celia
Gould and her staff are still careful to call it an
industry bill.
“We weren’t really, what you’d call
involved in it,” said John Chatburn, a top administrator
of the state cervidae program.
According to the governor’s attorney, who had
also been Risch’s attorney, members of the Idaho
Elk Breeders Association first came to Risch to ask
for help on a bill. They then worked with the Department
of Agriculture on the bill.
Langhorst and game farm opponents first said they would
support the industry licensing bill because it took
some small steps forward. But the steps were so miniscule
that Senate Democrats voted against it in the end.
Then a strange thing happened. The elk industry began
to tear apart its own bill.
Fiercely anti-regulation elk ranchers, including Rammell
himself, testified against the bill in the House Agricultural
Affairs Committee saying a few directors of their industry
association, in cahoots with Ag and the former governor,
foisted this licensing on them.
Rammell, who has been issued numerous fines for fencing,
tagging and testing violations, some of which are on
appeal, testified that the bill was meant to put elk
ranches out of business.
“That’s what licensing does,” Rammell
told the committee. “It puts a rope around your
neck.”
“History will decide who the bad actor was,”
Rammell told me after the hearing, as he shook hands
with several adoring fans in the crowd, legislators
among them. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“[Department of Agriculture deputy administrator]
John Chatburn and I are mortal enemies,” Rammell
added.
Meanwhile, history was still being made on another elk
ranch near Blackfoot, Idaho.
Two dozen wild cervids had been trapped inside the fences
and exposed to domestic cervids for six months. The
Fish and Game Department prepared to kill the exposed
wild elk, but then Gov.Otter stepped into the mix.
Fish and Game has consistently killed elk, moose and
deer that mingle with domestic cervidae in order to
prevent any disease or genetic transmission to wild
herds. Gov. Otter asked for and has received some assurance
that the domestic elk that were brought to the ranch,
owned by former NFL player Rulon Jones, were free of
disease. And he has ordered, with cooperation from Fish
and Game and Agriculture, that the wild animals be released
back into the wild.
The move has all the trappings of a political play as
sportmen’s groups huddle to plan a citizen’s
initiative to ban high-fence hunting.
Though Idaho’s domestic herds have been relatively
free of disease to date, this major policy change goes
against much of the conventional wisdom on chronic wasting
disease containment and control of other wildlife diseases.
So even though lawmakers have gone back to their ranches
for the year, the political season for elk is still
hot.
Five years ago, as the animal that could have been my
first big bull came to an abrupt stop on that trail,
I froze. Several minutes seemed to pass. My focus was
intense, my stillness palpable.
But there was one thing I was forgetting. I still hadn’t
let go of the bowstring and I couldn’t seem to
find my sights anywhere.
As if reading my mind, the grand animal spun and fled
around the mountain.
I still imagine him in my freezer, or on my plate. Sometimes
I think of the thick hide that could have kept my baby
girl warm through winter nights.
Perhaps there is a place on our supermarket shelves
for elk meat and other elk products. But the rapid growth
of the industry in the last decade, as it has been choked
off in surrounding states, has until now escaped public
scrutiny.
Nathaniel Hoffman is a reporter covering
the Idaho Legislature for the Boise Weekly as well as
the Wild Idaho News.
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Analysis:
Lawmakers
unable to agree on elk solution
By Shellie Nelson,
editor
Headwaters News
April 23, 2007
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According to the
Idaho Elk Breeders Association, there are 93 domestic
game farms in the state, and 17 of those offer
hunts.
The escape of dozens of domesticated
elk -- or cervidae-- in late summer from such
a ranch in Idaho near Yellowstone National Park
made such farms a hot political issue.
The issue came up between the gubernatorial
candidates in Idaho, with Democratic contender
Jerry Brady calling for a ban on such farms, and
Republican contender -- now Idaho Gov. Butch Otter
-- took some heat for being unclear on his position
about game farms.
Otter said he would support the
decision of the Idaho Legislature on the elk farm
issue.
There were at least nine bills proposed
during the 2007 legislative session, ranging from
a ban on game farms (Senate
Bill 1073); imposing a five-year moratorium
on new game farms (Senate
Bill 1004); and requiring dual fencing (Senate
Bill 1072).
None of those bills made it out
of the Senate Agricultural Affairs Committee.
Senate
Bill 1074, which would have required all domestic
cervidae farms be licensed by the Idaho Department
of Agriculture, did make it out of committee,
and passed the Senate on a 24-9 vote.
But that bill died in the House
Agricultural Affairs Committee on a tie vote.
Elk industry members who had supported the bill
in the Senate, now told members of the House committee
that they had doubts about the bill, and Minority
House members said they believed the bill did
not go far enough.
The combination of opponents ended
with the bill's failure.
Ultimately, the only bill that passed
in the 2007 Legislature was one that banned internet
hunting.
Now Idaho Sportsmen's Caucus Advisory
Council, a group made up of some 30 organizations,
is contemplating a ballot initiative to put the
total ban of elk-hunting ranches before Idaho
voters.
In order to do that, the Council
would have to gather more than 46,000 signatures
of registered voters before April 30, 2008.
Should the Council decide to pursue
that option, it will make for an interesting campaign.
In reading various publications
and articles about this issue, there seems to
be a lot of disagreement on the threat farmed
elk present to wild elk.
The Elk Breeders Association said
there's no documented case of chronic wasting
disease or brucellosis spreading from domesticated
elk to wild elk.
The Sportsmen's Council said while
hunting brings in more than $100 million in state
revenue each year, the elk ranch industry brings
adds only $10 million in revenue to the state,
and that game farms are just not worth the risk.
Most of the debate, however, isn't
focused on the dollars and cents of the elk industry,
where little is said about selling meat and antler
velvet.
The focus of most arguments against
the elk industry in Idaho is focused on the "shooter
bull," or "canned hunts" aspect
of the ranches.
And elk ranchers are arguing for
the right to use their property as they see fit
and to provide a service for which there is a
market.
Whether these issues will resonant
with Idaho voters enough to get the issue on the
ballot remains to be seen.
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