Indiana must say no to canned hunting

[greg]

This should be in Saturday's issue of the Indianapolis Star...


http://www.indystar.com/article/20130322/OPINION/303220074/Indiana-must-say-no-canned-hunting

 

[danielson]

I had never heard of canned hunting... Seems like it isnt very sporting...

 

[Bunnykid68]

I don't see the problem with it. We raise all kinds of animals to kill them for food, clothing, etc...

 

[danielson]

Can we do a child molester canned hunt? Id be in on that...

 

[Raitekk]

So I can't bring my canned bacon when I am hunting?

 

[Adrian8]

Hunting in the fenced enclosures is not much different than someone going to a farmer that raises hogs and tells the farmer he wants to buy one for a pig roast. So you walk out in the back lot , pick one out , shoot it between the eyes , pay the farmer and leave with your hog. The farmer owns the hogs, he vaccinates the hogs, he feeds them, they are his to sell. Deer hunting in the enclosures is similar , you just hunt in a larger enclosure, perhaps from a treestand in the woods...is it the same as "fair chase" hunting, no, but if someone wants to pay to shoot a deer or and elk that someone rightfully owns and wants to 'sell' it by hunting, that is what America is all about.. If you don't want to do it.don't do it.. let the ones that do, experience it the way they want. Many handicapped people do this as it is an easy way for them to get a trophy animal from their wheelchair. Different strokes for different folks. Personally I have never hunted in an enclosure and have killed many deer all fair chase, so I have no dog in the fight except the freedom issue..

 

[karl77]

thought this was about hunting with a suppressor.

 

[tenring]

What about the spread of CWD to our wild deer?

 

[greg]

Deer hunters join fight against "hunting preserves" - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

 

[Willie]

WATCH THIS VIDEO....

http://www.indianawildlife.org/cannedhunting.htm

This video purportedly showed several incidents of what I would never call "hunting". YMMV....

Yes, this was in Indiana.

Yes, this give hunters a bad name...as if the anti-hunters needed more help..

The wording on that webpage is old. It is last year that HB1265 went down in flames.. as Long “buried it” per request of Mitch Daniels.. This will be an every year battle as the shooting preserve operators and deer farmers will not give up.

For those who were not around, the Bellar operation was held up as a model shooting preserve. The committee of hunting groups, deer farmers, concerned citizens and the DNR toured that facility when they were trying to come up with a compromise.

Did any of that portrayed in the video go on at any other deer shooting facility? Who knows? I know one thing for sure - if anyone plunks down a huge chunk of money they expect to go home with a “trophy”. I also know human nature enough to know that the bigger monetary gain a person can make the more likely will be the chances they will take.

The “hunting” aspect aside, my main concern is the disease factor. That is both CWD and Bovine TB.

Bovine TB was discovered in 3 cervid farms in 2009 –

http://www.eregulations.com/indiana/hunting/deer-disease-information/

As I understand it, depopulating these farm’s herds are at the taxpayer’s expense, not the farmers.

Look to Michigan for their Bovine TB problem


http://www.michigan.gov/emergingdiseases/0,4579,7-186-25804_26354-76512--,00.html


CWD – Numerous deer were transported from a Pennsylvania deer farm to an Indiana deer farm that were from a herd where CWD was found. Several of the deer escaped and some have not been found or killed as of today,. They are out there mingling with Indiana’s wild herd.

The news report…

DNR seeks harvest, reporting of ear-tagged deer The Department of Natural Resources is advising hunters to be on the lookout for ear-tagged deer in Jackson County and the neighboring counties of Bartholomew, Jennings and Scott, and to harvest them if possible.

Hunters who harvest an ear-tagged deer in these counties or anywhere else in Indiana are asked to immediately call DNR Law Enforcement at (812) 837-9536. Anyone who strikes and kills an ear-tagged deer with a vehicle is asked to call the same number.

The focus on the four-county area is due to farm-raised deer that escaped from a captive cervid facility whose owner is cooperating with DNR. The deer may have been exposed to chronic wasting disease at a captive facility in another state before being transferred to Indiana. The DNR and the Indiana Board of Animal Health need to obtain the escaped ear-tagged deer to conduct disease testing.

Of particular interest are any deer with a yellow ear tag bearing the prefix IN 764 followed by another four numbers or any deer with a yellow ear tag and two numbers on it.

DNR staff will assist in transporting the deer carcass to Purdue University for testing at the Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory.

DNR will replace the hunter’s license at no cost.

I do not know of any CWD that just popped up in the wild herd.

Just Google Wisconsin and CWD and see what you get.. $50+ million trying to eradicate the disease.

It is just too BIG of chance to take..

 

[huntall50]

Although I agree with Adrian8, if feel that somehow in some way this takes something away from fair chase hunting. Legitimacy, maybe, I don't know. If it didn't shed light on real hunting and hunters I would be all for it. Like the example of buying a pig from a farmer is neither hunting nor buying a ham from the grocery, that process stands on its own. Does that make sense? IDK

 

[TiminMishawaka]

Interesting. I would think the Libertarian thing to do would be to let people run canned hunts on their own private property with their own private stock if they wanted to and let people pay for said hunts with their own money if they wanted to. If you want to give Government more control in telling you what you can and can't hunt on your privately owned property from your privately owned stock, believe me they will take it.

How is it CWD is a problem with private deer herds but never a problem with the deer, elk and bison herds that Government has in its enclosures?

 

[Spanky46151]

thought this was about hunting with a suppressor.

Me too! I'm lost (situation normal for me).

 

[singlesix]

Fair chase hunting? Let's see: use cameras to pattern deer, develop food plots for deer, use scent masking chemicals, use scope and rifles, etc, etc ... the day someone runs down a deer naked and rips its throat out with his bare teeth is the day I'll listen to the fair chase argument.

Let the free market rule. If someone wants to brag about the 12 point he got in a fenced in hunt, well let them. I use a simple recurve bow or traditional muzzle loader, but this doesn’t give me the right to tell others how to hunt or define for them what “real” hunting is about.

 

[TiminMishawaka]

Fair chase hunting? Let's see: use cameras to pattern deer, develop food plots for deer, use scent masking chemicals, use scope and rifles, etc, etc ... the day someone runs down a deer naked and rips its throat out with his bare teeth is the day I'll listen to the fair chase argument.

Persistance hunting. Still done in the Kalahari by bushmen and some tribes in Northern Mexico. You literally run down the animal on foot until it dies. When someone here can do that, they can talk about fair chase.

 

[Longhair]

Fenced-in deer hunting turning into a real battle - NY Daily News

Tony Stewart has been doing this for years in Bartholomew,County

You should see the fence where deer crash into the fence, I'm sure some nice bucks have died with racks stuck in the fence.

 

[Willie]

.................

How is it CWD is a problem with private deer herds but never a problem with the deer, elk and bison herds that Government has in its enclosures?

Might have something to do with the almost constant replenishing of " shooting stock" in the shooting preserves.

 

[Rhoadmar]

If you own the deer on your shooting preserves, you should be the one responsible for the health of the herd. Other than that I have no problem with canned hunts.

 

[LANShark42]

Hunting in the fenced enclosures is not much different than someone going to a farmer that raises hogs and tells the farmer he wants to buy one for a pig roast. So you walk out in the back lot , pick one out , shoot it between the eyes , pay the farmer and leave with your hog. The farmer owns the hogs, he vaccinates the hogs, he feeds them, they are his to sell. Deer hunting in the enclosures is similar , you just hunt in a larger enclosure, perhaps from a treestand in the woods...is it the same as "fair chase" hunting, no, but if someone wants to pay to shoot a deer or and elk that someone rightfully owns and wants to 'sell' it by hunting, that is what America is all about.. If you don't want to do it.don't do it.. let the ones that do, experience it the way they want. Many handicapped people do this as it is an easy way for them to get a trophy animal from their wheelchair. Different strokes for different folks. Personally I have never hunted in an enclosure and have killed many deer all fair chase, so I have no dog in the fight except the freedom issue..

I'm not a hunter, so please pardon my ignorance, but how does one "own" a wild deer?

 

[IndyDave1776]

It sounds to me like a number of separate issues are being amalgamated into one.

The disease argument seems to stem from the transport of deer from Pennsylvania to Indiana. This is an issue of transporting animals which is completely irrelevant from 'canned hunting' aside from the motive for doing so.

We also have the issue of ownership of livestock, which is likely the reason for importing out of state deer, given the the state has a truly Machiavellian definition of the status of wild animals in which it asserts ownership over the animals such as to trump property ownership rights yet absolves itself of liability for damage done by them, even when it is a direct or indirect result of decisions made or actions taken by the state.

Next comes the issue of 'sportsmanship' which represents one side of a coin with the definition of a canned hunt being the other side of that same coin. A 'canned hunt' could potentially be anything between shooting a deer in a stall in a barn to hunting a confined and isolated herd roaming a 10,000 acre private preserve.

There are also issues to consider regarding efforts taken or not taken which would influence the herd ranging from absolutely wild to being tamed to the point they would walk up to a hunter as if volunteering to get shot. In the end, the likely outcome is having a new issue equally amorphous with 'assault weapons'.

The Star says:

As sportsmen and women we know that these animals have been bred specifically for abnormally large antlers and exhibit little to no flight instincts which you would expect of a wild animal. In other words, they are tame.

Oh really? How do we 'know' this, and who says that even if this is done somewhere it necessarily has to be that way? It sounds to me like saying that everyone 'knows' that fewer guns on the street will reduce crime.

Rep. Ubelhor authored a bill earlier in the session but it failed to get a hearing as there was an intense media focus on the Connersville couple and “Dani” the deer. That saga ended with Gov. Mike Pence requesting that the DNR drop the charges against the couple or a pardon for Dani’s saviors.

I will grant them that the incident with the rescued deer was just plain stupid, but it is totally irrelevant to the subject aside from potential examples of individual hypocrisy. There is no relevance in terms of a policy issue.

Twenty-three states have Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), a fatal deer disease present in either their wild or captive herds, or both. It is believed movement of deer to and from captive facilities is the primary reason the disease is spreading across this country. Cost to States’ agencies and taxpayers are astronomical. Wisconsin has spent over $50 million in an effort to manage CWD disease. In Indiana we have had tuberculous found in several captive deer facilities, a Harrison County hunting facility, a Wayne County farm, and a Franklin County farm.

Yet another false problem I would assume to come from the Bambiists on the left. My grandparents raised and competed with horses for most of their adult lives and one of the things they had to do regularly was have teh veterinarian perform a coggins test and present proof in order to cross state lines (at least with some states) with extreme consequences if they were caught without having done so. Assuming that the transported deer are transported by vehicle as opposed to being issued orders to self-deport to another state, I fail to see why similar testing could not be done on the live deer.

Equine infectious anemia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Star has done a wonderful job of misrepresenting the news and decrying practices that it does not even define, which, as I already mentioned, can take on a very, very wide range. Note to the editor: Propaganda ≠ journalism and opinion ≠ news.