Post by cambygsp on Oct 23, 2005 4:19:05 GMT -5
www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051023/NEWS01/510230528/1008/NEWS02
October 23, 2005
Fair game?
Game preserve owners and their customers are the targets of an unlikely alliance between hunters and animal-rights activists.
CORYDON, Ind. -- As a hunting preserve owner, Rodney Bruce doesn't think he's doing anything wrong -- not morally, not legally.
Nor do Indiana's nine other operators of so-called high-fence game ranches.
Nevertheless, they've come under heavy fire, and their future appears iffy.
Sportsmen's groups and animal-rights activists, unlikely bedfellows, are increasingly united in condemning high-fence hunting as unsportsmanlike and cruel.
A more immediate threat is an order by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources that they close down altogether.
Fighting back, Bruce sued the DNR, claiming it doesn't have the authority to put him out of business. The case gets under way with a pretrial conference Oct. 31.
High-fence hunting -- detractors call it "canned" hunting -- is drawing criticism in other states, as well. Fifteen have banned it; 21 aren't allowing new facilities. A bill is pending in the U.S. House that would hamper such operations by prohibiting the interstate commerce of exotic animals destined for hunting preserves. (In addition to white-tailed deer, many preserves offer customers a chance to hunt non-native species such as wild boar.)
Three years ago, Bruce opened his Whitetail Bluff preserve on 100 acres of hilly Harrison County wilderness. He built a 9-foot fence around it, in part to keep out any wild animals. Mostly, though, the fence was built to keep his deer in. He feeds and cares for the animals, some of which cost him $4,000 apiece. He uses them for breeding, and ultimately, when they're full-grown, the males become hunting inventory.
Bruce's customers, armed with bows or shotguns, depending on the season, prize "trophy" bucks, or "monster" bucks, so highly that they pay Bruce $3,900 for three days of hunting -- with a one-buck limit.
An Indiana hunting license costs far less, just $24, and shooting deer in the wild isn't that hard. But wild deer rarely live past the age of 3. That's half the age of many high-fence deer. A 3-year-old's rack is not considered "monster" enough for some people.
Bruce's deer aren't "taken" until they're at least 4. "I'm offering a hunting opportunity the state can't provide," Bruce said.
His customers agree.
"This is the kind of place where dreams are made," said Richard Riddle, who owns a landscape company in Memphis, Tenn., and was at Whitetail Bluff earlier this month, on opening day of bow season.
Riddle, 41, his ponytail graying, describes himself as "just a long-haired redneck with money to spend on a deer." He said that thrills are harder to come by as a person ages, and that for him, bagging a run-of-the-mill deer no longer qualifies. Bucks with big racks still qualify.
"I'm here," he said, "because there's big stuff here."
Mainstream hunting organizations say high-fence hunting amounts to the shooting of what are essentially farm animals. Critics say high-fence hunting cuts off an animal's escape route, negates the time-honored concept of "fair chase" and gives hunting a bad name.
Animal-rights activists such as the Humane Society of the United States oppose all hunting but especially high-fence hunting, which they consider exceptionally foul. Foes also worry that confining deer increases the chance of disease, such as chronic wasting disease, which could spread to the wild deer population.
A change in the rules
The potential death knell of Bruce's preserve came this summer when the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, after allowing the practice for a decade, pronounced it illegal. Kyle Hupfer, the DNR's newly appointed director, gave Bruce and the other high-fence preserves operating in Indiana until next spring to cease operations.
Bruce, who works a factory job during the week, doesn't understand the outrage. "What I've got is the same principle as a pay (fishing) lake," he said.
In 1999, when Bruce was considering getting into the business, he wrote to the DNR to make sure it was legal. "My question is," he wrote, "can I legally charge people to come to my place for this vacation/hunting experience?"
The DNR gave him the green light, though it cautioned that "state statutes and rules may change in the future that would disallow the type of business venture that you have described to us."
Bruce moved ahead with his plans.
He bought a couple of hundred acres in Harrison County, near where he grew up. Mostly with his own hands, he erected the 9-foot fence around 100 acres and, inside the enclosure, built a small lodge with a couple of bunk rooms, a pool table and a fireplace, and everywhere mounted deer heads.
He started buying white-tailed deer and breeding them. His goal: bucks with massive antlers -- the kind of thing that looks impressive over a mantel.
Two events foreshadowed the trouble to come.
In February 2004, the Bellar's Place high-fence hunting preserve near Peru, which other high-fence operators had held up as a model preserve, was raided by state and federal officials, who found egregious hunting law violations.
During owner Russ Bellar's trial, customers of the preserve testified they shot deer near feeders or bait piles and sometimes in small pens. The Bellar case drew considerable attention and outrage, including Bruce's. For the public at large, it was an unflattering introduction to high-fence hunting. As his trial wound down, Bellar entered a guilty plea. He was ordered to pay a $575,000 fine and sentenced to a year in prison.
This past February, Hupfer was appointed by newly elected Gov. Mitch Daniels to head the DNR. Hupfer is a deer hunter -- he has the head of a 14-point buck, which he hunted in the wild, on his office wall.
But Hupfer also is mindful of public opinion. He has never visited a high-fence hunting operation, but he has received 1,300 e-mails regarding the practice -- 897 of them opposed.
He said his reading of Indiana law convinced him that high-fence hunting was not legal.
The statutes, however, are murky. They "do not directly address many of the questions surrounding the complicated and controversial issue of hunting privately owned deer kept on private property," the Indiana attorney general's office concluded in an opinion issued in August 2004.
Legal questions aside, Hupfer said, "The hunting of domesticated animals is not something the people of this state are interested in."
Some are.
Although his operation is open only three days a week, Bruce has more than 40 people signed up for this season, which kicked off with the bowhunters earlier this month. And he already has about two dozen guests booked for the 2006 season.
Fenced hunting appeals to people with busy lives, said Don Blinzinger, a lobbyist for the Indiana Deer Farmers, which counts hunting-preserve operators as members.
Hunters in the wild must scout the area for their prey, and that takes time. "Some of our folks are increasingly disinclined to allow for the time it takes to go out and hunt in the wild," Blinzinger said, "and the fenced preserves give them an alternative."
There are no guarantees at Whitetail Bluff, but Bruce said 93 percent of his customers get what they come for.
Riddle got his. It came on a recent Sunday, the final day of his hunt, late in the day. The clock was ticking. That adds to the tension, heightening the experience, in Bruce's view. Preserve guests are allowed to kill just one buck, so if they get one early in their trip, they're basically just sitting around watching football on TV the rest of the weekend.
The hunt
The wooded area at Whitetail Bluff has the look and feel of the wild. Leaves on the trees help mask the existence of the fence. Silence is a must. Deer don't present themselves to be shot.
But Bruce's woods do have an unusually large deer population -- around 70, which is a lot for 100 acres.
Riddle had seen a beauty the day before and had considered shooting it. He was sitting in a tree stand with his guide, Ronnie Bruce, Rodney's brother, when the animal came into view.
He hesitated. He wanted to know whether there was anything bigger out there. Ronnie Bruce telephoned his brother, who was in another tree stand with another customer. Rodney heard the description of the deer and relayed that it was not, in fact, his biggest.
Riddle held his fire.
His gamble paid off. He claimed an even bigger deer that came into range late that Sunday.
A taxidermist is now mounting the head, and in a couple of weeks it will be on a wall in Riddle's house, joining 30 others (Riddle has 22 in his office).
Riddle said his time at Whitetail Bluff was "awesome," and he is already booked for next year.
If there is a next year.
Bruce said he's confident there will be. "Once this gets into court, (the DNR) will be overruled," he predicted.
If it's not, Hupfer's ruling will not go into effect until the end of the 2006 legislative session. That gives Bruce and his allies time to take their case to lawmakers.
Rep. William Friend, R-Macy, represents the region where Russ Bellar operated his preserve, and he went to bat for Bellar several times in the legislature. He sees high-fence hunting as good for the economy and wishes people weren't so squeamish about it.
"If someone can make a business profitable in rural Indiana by managing those animals, it's a positive thing," he said. "Economic development looks different in rural Indiana."
Blinzinger is considering trying to get a definitive pro-high-fence hunting law passed in the General Assembly this session.
Friend, however, said he won't be there to sponsor it. Earlier this year, he became the House majority leader, and he said he's too busy to again take up the cudgel for high-fence hunting. He's also tired of taking heat.
"The e-mail and communication I've taken from people who think I'm evil, immoral and unethical because I don't see this is a terrible practice," he said, sighing. "It's mostly from sportsmen and animal welfare groups -- just animal lovers in general."
Friend said he has never seen an issue that evokes such a deep emotional and, to him, unreasonable response.
"You know who I blame for this?" he said. "Walt Disney. That 'Bambi.' "
The arguments
A look at both sides of the fence in the preserve-hunting debate:
The pros
• High-fence hunting is safer than hunting in the wild, proponents say, because the hunters know precisely who is on the grounds, reducing the chance one hunter will accidentally shoot another.
• As open land gives way to development, hunting land becomes more scarce. Hunters say farmers are not as likely to allow hunting on their land as they once were.
• High-fence hunting preserves provide a refuge, albeit at a high price.
• People like high-fence hunting. Whitetail Bluff's Rodney Bruce says he has 40 customers booked for the 2005 season, at $3,900 a head.
• Fenced hunting is a way for a person to make some money in rural Indiana. "You got Mitch Daniels overseas in China trying to bring business in, and we have business right here that can work," says Lee Fritz, who owns a 100-acre high-fence hunting preserve outside Bremen. "It's not big business, but it could help out a little bit."
The cons
• Indiana still has lots of good hunting land, opponents say, some of it public, some of it farmland. They say farmers aren't as inhospitable to hunters as high-fence advocates say.
• By keeping deer in relatively close quarters -- Bruce's land, with about 70 deer on 100 acres, has a greater concentration of deer than what is found in the wild -- high-fence operations run a higher risk of their herd contracting diseases, such as chronic wasting disease. The fear is that CWD, which is fatal to deer, could spread from captive deer to wild deer. If that happened, it would be difficult to control.
• High-fence hunting is not "fair chase," meaning the animal doesn't have a sporting chance to get away.
• Deer in high-fence preserves have been raised by humans, like livestock. "You're not hunting wild animals," says Doug Allman, spokesman for the Indiana Deer Hunters Association.
• People who pay big money to hunt behind high fences are taking shortcuts, opponents say. They don't have to scout the area ahead of time. They don't have to hike deep into woods. "I wouldn't call them hunters," says Brian Preston, the Midwest coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation. "I'd call them rich, lazy slobs."
Hunting methods
Most deer hunters wait in tree stands. In that way, their experience in the wild is similar to that at Rodney Bruce's Whitetail Bluff, where nearly all the hunting is done from stands. Here are the three most common approaches to deer hunting:
• You can sit in a tree-stand and wait for a deer to come by.
• You can walk, with the idea of flushing a deer in the direction of a waiting buddy.
• Or you can stalk by slowly crisscrossing, say, a brush-covered field, with the idea of spooking a deer.
To learn more
• Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Fenced Deer Hunting Information Center: www.in.gov/dnr/fencedhunting
• Humane Society of the United States: www.hsus.org/wildlife/stop_canned_hunts/
October 23, 2005
Fair game?
Game preserve owners and their customers are the targets of an unlikely alliance between hunters and animal-rights activists.
CORYDON, Ind. -- As a hunting preserve owner, Rodney Bruce doesn't think he's doing anything wrong -- not morally, not legally.
Nor do Indiana's nine other operators of so-called high-fence game ranches.
Nevertheless, they've come under heavy fire, and their future appears iffy.
Sportsmen's groups and animal-rights activists, unlikely bedfellows, are increasingly united in condemning high-fence hunting as unsportsmanlike and cruel.
A more immediate threat is an order by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources that they close down altogether.
Fighting back, Bruce sued the DNR, claiming it doesn't have the authority to put him out of business. The case gets under way with a pretrial conference Oct. 31.
High-fence hunting -- detractors call it "canned" hunting -- is drawing criticism in other states, as well. Fifteen have banned it; 21 aren't allowing new facilities. A bill is pending in the U.S. House that would hamper such operations by prohibiting the interstate commerce of exotic animals destined for hunting preserves. (In addition to white-tailed deer, many preserves offer customers a chance to hunt non-native species such as wild boar.)
Three years ago, Bruce opened his Whitetail Bluff preserve on 100 acres of hilly Harrison County wilderness. He built a 9-foot fence around it, in part to keep out any wild animals. Mostly, though, the fence was built to keep his deer in. He feeds and cares for the animals, some of which cost him $4,000 apiece. He uses them for breeding, and ultimately, when they're full-grown, the males become hunting inventory.
Bruce's customers, armed with bows or shotguns, depending on the season, prize "trophy" bucks, or "monster" bucks, so highly that they pay Bruce $3,900 for three days of hunting -- with a one-buck limit.
An Indiana hunting license costs far less, just $24, and shooting deer in the wild isn't that hard. But wild deer rarely live past the age of 3. That's half the age of many high-fence deer. A 3-year-old's rack is not considered "monster" enough for some people.
Bruce's deer aren't "taken" until they're at least 4. "I'm offering a hunting opportunity the state can't provide," Bruce said.
His customers agree.
"This is the kind of place where dreams are made," said Richard Riddle, who owns a landscape company in Memphis, Tenn., and was at Whitetail Bluff earlier this month, on opening day of bow season.
Riddle, 41, his ponytail graying, describes himself as "just a long-haired redneck with money to spend on a deer." He said that thrills are harder to come by as a person ages, and that for him, bagging a run-of-the-mill deer no longer qualifies. Bucks with big racks still qualify.
"I'm here," he said, "because there's big stuff here."
Mainstream hunting organizations say high-fence hunting amounts to the shooting of what are essentially farm animals. Critics say high-fence hunting cuts off an animal's escape route, negates the time-honored concept of "fair chase" and gives hunting a bad name.
Animal-rights activists such as the Humane Society of the United States oppose all hunting but especially high-fence hunting, which they consider exceptionally foul. Foes also worry that confining deer increases the chance of disease, such as chronic wasting disease, which could spread to the wild deer population.
A change in the rules
The potential death knell of Bruce's preserve came this summer when the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, after allowing the practice for a decade, pronounced it illegal. Kyle Hupfer, the DNR's newly appointed director, gave Bruce and the other high-fence preserves operating in Indiana until next spring to cease operations.
Bruce, who works a factory job during the week, doesn't understand the outrage. "What I've got is the same principle as a pay (fishing) lake," he said.
In 1999, when Bruce was considering getting into the business, he wrote to the DNR to make sure it was legal. "My question is," he wrote, "can I legally charge people to come to my place for this vacation/hunting experience?"
The DNR gave him the green light, though it cautioned that "state statutes and rules may change in the future that would disallow the type of business venture that you have described to us."
Bruce moved ahead with his plans.
He bought a couple of hundred acres in Harrison County, near where he grew up. Mostly with his own hands, he erected the 9-foot fence around 100 acres and, inside the enclosure, built a small lodge with a couple of bunk rooms, a pool table and a fireplace, and everywhere mounted deer heads.
He started buying white-tailed deer and breeding them. His goal: bucks with massive antlers -- the kind of thing that looks impressive over a mantel.
Two events foreshadowed the trouble to come.
In February 2004, the Bellar's Place high-fence hunting preserve near Peru, which other high-fence operators had held up as a model preserve, was raided by state and federal officials, who found egregious hunting law violations.
During owner Russ Bellar's trial, customers of the preserve testified they shot deer near feeders or bait piles and sometimes in small pens. The Bellar case drew considerable attention and outrage, including Bruce's. For the public at large, it was an unflattering introduction to high-fence hunting. As his trial wound down, Bellar entered a guilty plea. He was ordered to pay a $575,000 fine and sentenced to a year in prison.
This past February, Hupfer was appointed by newly elected Gov. Mitch Daniels to head the DNR. Hupfer is a deer hunter -- he has the head of a 14-point buck, which he hunted in the wild, on his office wall.
But Hupfer also is mindful of public opinion. He has never visited a high-fence hunting operation, but he has received 1,300 e-mails regarding the practice -- 897 of them opposed.
He said his reading of Indiana law convinced him that high-fence hunting was not legal.
The statutes, however, are murky. They "do not directly address many of the questions surrounding the complicated and controversial issue of hunting privately owned deer kept on private property," the Indiana attorney general's office concluded in an opinion issued in August 2004.
Legal questions aside, Hupfer said, "The hunting of domesticated animals is not something the people of this state are interested in."
Some are.
Although his operation is open only three days a week, Bruce has more than 40 people signed up for this season, which kicked off with the bowhunters earlier this month. And he already has about two dozen guests booked for the 2006 season.
Fenced hunting appeals to people with busy lives, said Don Blinzinger, a lobbyist for the Indiana Deer Farmers, which counts hunting-preserve operators as members.
Hunters in the wild must scout the area for their prey, and that takes time. "Some of our folks are increasingly disinclined to allow for the time it takes to go out and hunt in the wild," Blinzinger said, "and the fenced preserves give them an alternative."
There are no guarantees at Whitetail Bluff, but Bruce said 93 percent of his customers get what they come for.
Riddle got his. It came on a recent Sunday, the final day of his hunt, late in the day. The clock was ticking. That adds to the tension, heightening the experience, in Bruce's view. Preserve guests are allowed to kill just one buck, so if they get one early in their trip, they're basically just sitting around watching football on TV the rest of the weekend.
The hunt
The wooded area at Whitetail Bluff has the look and feel of the wild. Leaves on the trees help mask the existence of the fence. Silence is a must. Deer don't present themselves to be shot.
But Bruce's woods do have an unusually large deer population -- around 70, which is a lot for 100 acres.
Riddle had seen a beauty the day before and had considered shooting it. He was sitting in a tree stand with his guide, Ronnie Bruce, Rodney's brother, when the animal came into view.
He hesitated. He wanted to know whether there was anything bigger out there. Ronnie Bruce telephoned his brother, who was in another tree stand with another customer. Rodney heard the description of the deer and relayed that it was not, in fact, his biggest.
Riddle held his fire.
His gamble paid off. He claimed an even bigger deer that came into range late that Sunday.
A taxidermist is now mounting the head, and in a couple of weeks it will be on a wall in Riddle's house, joining 30 others (Riddle has 22 in his office).
Riddle said his time at Whitetail Bluff was "awesome," and he is already booked for next year.
If there is a next year.
Bruce said he's confident there will be. "Once this gets into court, (the DNR) will be overruled," he predicted.
If it's not, Hupfer's ruling will not go into effect until the end of the 2006 legislative session. That gives Bruce and his allies time to take their case to lawmakers.
Rep. William Friend, R-Macy, represents the region where Russ Bellar operated his preserve, and he went to bat for Bellar several times in the legislature. He sees high-fence hunting as good for the economy and wishes people weren't so squeamish about it.
"If someone can make a business profitable in rural Indiana by managing those animals, it's a positive thing," he said. "Economic development looks different in rural Indiana."
Blinzinger is considering trying to get a definitive pro-high-fence hunting law passed in the General Assembly this session.
Friend, however, said he won't be there to sponsor it. Earlier this year, he became the House majority leader, and he said he's too busy to again take up the cudgel for high-fence hunting. He's also tired of taking heat.
"The e-mail and communication I've taken from people who think I'm evil, immoral and unethical because I don't see this is a terrible practice," he said, sighing. "It's mostly from sportsmen and animal welfare groups -- just animal lovers in general."
Friend said he has never seen an issue that evokes such a deep emotional and, to him, unreasonable response.
"You know who I blame for this?" he said. "Walt Disney. That 'Bambi.' "
The arguments
A look at both sides of the fence in the preserve-hunting debate:
The pros
• High-fence hunting is safer than hunting in the wild, proponents say, because the hunters know precisely who is on the grounds, reducing the chance one hunter will accidentally shoot another.
• As open land gives way to development, hunting land becomes more scarce. Hunters say farmers are not as likely to allow hunting on their land as they once were.
• High-fence hunting preserves provide a refuge, albeit at a high price.
• People like high-fence hunting. Whitetail Bluff's Rodney Bruce says he has 40 customers booked for the 2005 season, at $3,900 a head.
• Fenced hunting is a way for a person to make some money in rural Indiana. "You got Mitch Daniels overseas in China trying to bring business in, and we have business right here that can work," says Lee Fritz, who owns a 100-acre high-fence hunting preserve outside Bremen. "It's not big business, but it could help out a little bit."
The cons
• Indiana still has lots of good hunting land, opponents say, some of it public, some of it farmland. They say farmers aren't as inhospitable to hunters as high-fence advocates say.
• By keeping deer in relatively close quarters -- Bruce's land, with about 70 deer on 100 acres, has a greater concentration of deer than what is found in the wild -- high-fence operations run a higher risk of their herd contracting diseases, such as chronic wasting disease. The fear is that CWD, which is fatal to deer, could spread from captive deer to wild deer. If that happened, it would be difficult to control.
• High-fence hunting is not "fair chase," meaning the animal doesn't have a sporting chance to get away.
• Deer in high-fence preserves have been raised by humans, like livestock. "You're not hunting wild animals," says Doug Allman, spokesman for the Indiana Deer Hunters Association.
• People who pay big money to hunt behind high fences are taking shortcuts, opponents say. They don't have to scout the area ahead of time. They don't have to hike deep into woods. "I wouldn't call them hunters," says Brian Preston, the Midwest coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation. "I'd call them rich, lazy slobs."
Hunting methods
Most deer hunters wait in tree stands. In that way, their experience in the wild is similar to that at Rodney Bruce's Whitetail Bluff, where nearly all the hunting is done from stands. Here are the three most common approaches to deer hunting:
• You can sit in a tree-stand and wait for a deer to come by.
• You can walk, with the idea of flushing a deer in the direction of a waiting buddy.
• Or you can stalk by slowly crisscrossing, say, a brush-covered field, with the idea of spooking a deer.
To learn more
• Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Fenced Deer Hunting Information Center: www.in.gov/dnr/fencedhunting
• Humane Society of the United States: www.hsus.org/wildlife/stop_canned_hunts/
