Here's why elk ranches should be illegal in every state

[elkfarmer]

let me clear something up here. not now or ever do i believe we should introduce red deer into the wild on purpose. we have one cow elk in idaho that been tested numerous times and has finally had a positive test for red deer. all tom is doing here is trying to wake you guys up a little bit. the sky isn't falling. it's like the CWD thing. it's in the wild, its been in the wild for a long time but everyone wants to blame the game farms and it wasn't thier fault to begin with.

insurance:

should we charge gun manufacturers such a high insurance that a ruger 10/22 will cost $500.00. NO, although they are the ones that made the firearms that have killed thousands of inocent people.

should we charge all the bars and taverns such a high insurance that a beer will cost $15.00. No, although how many people have been killed from someone leaving a bar.

so, quit your :BLEEP: do a little more hump and get over it.

 

[AZ402]

should we charge all the bars and taverns such a high insurance that a beer will cost $15.00. No, although how many people have been killed from someone leaving a bar.

Not quite sure I see the correlation between having a brewski and tainting our N. American elk herds?

 

[mtmiller]

let me clear something up here. not now or ever do i believe we should introduce red deer into the wild on purpose. we have one cow elk in idaho that been tested numerous times and has finally had a positive test for red deer. all tom is doing here is trying to wake you guys up a little bit. the sky isn't falling. it's like the CWD thing. it's in the wild, its been in the wild for a long time but everyone wants to blame the game farms and it wasn't thier fault to begin with.

insurance:

should we charge gun manufacturers such a high insurance that a ruger 10/22 will cost $500.00. NO, although they are the ones that made the firearms that have killed thousands of inocent people.

should we charge all the bars and taverns such a high insurance that a beer will cost $15.00. No, although how many people have been killed from someone leaving a bar.

so, quit your :BLEEP: do a little more hump and get over it.

Tom, did you pull a 'gunner on me and switch names? Might want to work on the analogies.

 

[noharleyyet]

Texans will just bring up something about Texas again in rebuttal.

Excellent counterpoint, did that come out of your 'Buckhole'?

 

[MarvB]

Big Fin for President!!

...and support your local chapter of M.A.D.D.....mothers against drunk deer!

 

[BigHornRam]

This sucker broke 100.....that was my goal. Another excellent post Big Fin.

 

[Tom]

elkfarmer is not me. I like Big Fin's last post a lot. It recognizes the American way of life, allocating costs is a great idea. Its some real fresh air in this thread for sure, real thinking about the problems and workablesolutions for them.

I was just thinking instead of having an insurance man in the middle, that it would possibly be more efficient to have each hunter/shooter pay for a liscense like is done in some states high fence hunts now. I like his idea that those who double fence, and hence, manage escapes and disease spread better would have a cheaper liscense or insurance. People with good records generally get better insurance rates also. The possible benefit of having private insurance might make things better quicker, as government has trouble manageing some things as well as its managed in private. Private insurance for a native animal is quite ingeneous and has great possibilities, I think. Everyone who hunts a high fence area for native or exotic animals in Texas buys a liscense from Texas Parks and Wildlife directly though and Texas Parks and Wildlife gets the money for the management costs they incure, even on exotics.

By the way, Records of Exotics has a silk catagory I think. Its a sika elk cross of some kind and has much bigger antlers than a normal sika body, but its body is closer to a sika elk, than a Rocky Mountain elk. I'm certainly not the only one not worried about few possible crosses destroying the "pure" elk, some people relish in the crosses and they occur in New Zealand regularly, I've read.

elkfarmer makes a good point about CWD. It seems like it is managed much better on game farms than it is in the wild. That is great stuff. It was a research facility where we first learned about that disease, now its being controlled better. Ground bone and blood from cattle that had mad cow disease or sheep that had scrapie can't be put in the feed now, as I understand it.

We will always be manageing disease interactions between agricultural and native species. So, we need a mixture of methods for management for each to manage both. That's a comment it seems like people should realize means domestic and wild interact, so does their management.

The drunk, who kills someone accidently has insurance to cover that, but the bartender who served him and knew he was drunk has some responsibility too nowadays. If we take that analogy, the hunter/shooter will pay for some basic costs of accidents, but the accident prone game farmer will need to pay more too and even be subject to shut down.

 

[MarvB]

The drunk, who kills someone accidently has insurance to cover that

...probably a 50-50 toss up on that one Tom...

 

[Nemont]

The drunk, who kills someone accidently has insurance to cover that, but the bartender who served him and knew he was drunk has some responsibility too nowadays. If we take that analogy, the hunter/shooter will pay for some basic costs of accidents, but the accident prone game farmer will need to pay more too and even be subject to shut down.

And every bar that has a liquor license in Montana has an insurance policy for liquor liability that provides them coverage for the bar tender, the bar patron and the owner of said establishment. If you want to use that analogy then go ahead because that has been tested in court and an insurance product has been designed, underwritten and sold to cover that risk. I don't know any bars that have gone out of business due to insurance premiums being too high.

The gun analogy is a whole different risk. First off if a Ruger 10/22 is sold to someone it isn't going to cross breed with a .300 WSM and producer a wildcat round that nobody can find ammo for. In addition the gun industry already carries HUGE amounts insurance and hire packs of attorneys to defend, puts money aside to pay claims out of a self insured reserve and works hard reduce their claims. So the price of that risk is already in the product as far as guns are concerned.

Why won't the game farmers have the same courtesy indemnify the public from their own activities?

Nemont

 

[Tom]

They get the tests on their animals, they kill off the sick ones, they pay fines when they screw up.

Its probably the wild elk's fault that there is any crossbreeding, so they should pay, the caretakers of them. haha If you'd stop those big old bully elk from attacking those innocent little red deer cows, then everything would be just like you like. You guys let your wild elk be too promiscuous. haha

How many of those escaped elk did they get? Go get em!! I think I read that Idaho charged people for the tags on those extra hunts that they ran. The state made money on that, eh?

 

[JB]

How many of those escaped elk did they get?

somewhere near 100.
still over 60 Morgellons elk roaming around.

 

[Washington Hunter]

See how much easier things would be if game farms were simply illegal? I would rather see money being spent to protect the places that wild elk now inhabit, that are at risk of development. Then we (and future generations) will have plenty of opportunity to hunt WILD elk, rather than going on a fake, artificial "hunt," trying to pretend that we are really hunting.

 

[Tom]

I guess it was a regular elk tag I read about, I don't remember now, but they gave people in that area an extended season, was that it? That way if they didn't get a real elk in the real season, they might go try for one of the Mogellon elk and help out the cleanup, eh?

That would be more to your liking WH, rather than sell an extra tag for a cleanup, is that what you're saying? The extended season way, the extra tag money could go to a better cause. I think it could go to a better cause either way though. It would better to get the extra tag money, I think, that would pay for the printing up of the extra season info. etc. instead of taking it from other sources. It seems good to collect extra money for any extra problem/season/cost to me.

 

[280]

Tom, I am sure most guys that didn`t get a "real" wouldn`t want one of his cross bred high bred pieces of chit, even if it was free!

 

[Tom]

Yeah, they'd probably not even waste a necked down 30-06 bullet on it if they saw it, eh? They'd rather let it walk, no harm there, not even worth going after since it will likely die quick, being a mutant in the wild. I think I"m getting it now.

 

[elkfarmer]

my point about the insurance. do you think that every killing by a weapon the gun makers have to pay? NO... do you think every time someone drives drunk and kills someone the bars have to pay? NO.

now, lets insure all of the game farms, details of the policy cover everything for arguments sake. the same thing in idaho happens, you guys will still be griping about it.

who else here stands behind 280 statement. i don't blame you, i bet you are waiting for all the wild ones to stand next to the road or pluck them out of the field when the snow gets to deep. thats hunting.

HAVE YOU PUT YOUR HAY OUT TODAY

 

[Oak]

Your analogies don't make sense. In your analogies, there is a degree of separation between the insured and the action. In the case of game farms, the insured is the one screwing up. Farmer doesn't maintain fence, elk escape, farmer pays. Guy gets drunk at bar, kills someone, guy goes to jail. Guy buys gun, kills someone, guy goes to jail.

For your examples to make sense, we'd have to be talking about you selling a live elk to someone who subsequently lets it go in the wild, and you pay the consequences.

now, lets insure all of the game farms, details of the policy cover everything for arguments sake. the same thing in idaho happens, you guys will still be griping about it.

You're probably right. Screw the insurance, let's just ban them.

 

[AZ402]

You're probably right. Screw the insurance, let's just ban them.

Good post Oak, all I could come up with for a reply was

 

[Ithaca 37]

The problem with red deer genes getting into pure strain Rocky Mtn. Elk can't be solved with insurance coverage. Any idiot should be able to figure that out.

Every industry claims it doesn't need government regulation because it can regulate itself. The elk farmers had their chance to regulate themselves and failed. Ban them all.

 

[Tom]

We could bring back prohibition for the drunk, eh. As soon as there is a drunk or two out on the road, ban drinking. Not exactly a workable solution, that I know of, but some locations will and have tried it. Some counties in Texas ban the sale of alcohol, but none ban "game farms" as far as I know, they work here, they are regulated well here, as well as, other places. The so called bible belt goes through parts of Texas, that's why banning sale of alcohol works in those counties. Is there a problem with red deer in the genes of wild elk somewhere?