Where do you draw the line ?

[BHR]

Elk Farmer,

Have you ever asked a non hunter (not anti hunter) what they think about captive game hunting? Have you ever heard a positive comment for it?

If a state decides to make captive game hunting illegal, it's the will of that states citizens. Get over it. Spend your time worrying about what New York citizens think about this form of "hunting". If they allow it to continue, good for them. It's their state. If they don't, good for them as well.

Paul

 

[elkfarmer]

BHR, i get alot of people stopping by to see the elk. non-hunter to old hunters who don't get out anymore. they love to see them. they stop to see the new calves and watch the bulls grow there horns. around here it's not something you see all the time. i have had sons bring there fathers here, fathers bring there young kids, boyscout troops and i have had a preschool do a field trip to see them. there is no charge, i will show anyone.

you are right, it is the citizens choice as sad as it is. it is a choice made on emotion and that isn't good enough for me but that is the way it is. and when it involves false information through the media thats even worse and that is what is happening.

 

[Tom]

Some people should be careful talking about Chinese deer much. I read, I imagine it as slaughtering when you say it is slaughtering. Ask yourselk, have I ever seen one even, before you type something about them? A lot of people's statements here are imaginary thoughts to me, because they're not around these things much.

 

[Oak]

Elkfarmer, BHR didn't ask if you had asked if they like to see the baby calves or watch the antlers grow on the bulls. He wanted to know if you ask them what they think of "captive game hunting". So, maybe next time they stop to see the calves or check out the new antlers growing on the bulls, you should ask them what they think about the idea of selling the right to "hunt" one of those bulls to the highest bidder.

Oak

 

[BHR]

Oak,

Glad to see you didn't fall for Elk Farmers bull shit response. He didn't answer my question did he.

Elk Farmer,

While your answering my original question with a real answer, please give me some examples of false information provided by the media. Comeing from a straight up guy like you, this should at least be entertaining.

Paul

 

[Tom]

BHR, I'll answer. Hunters defend hunting easily. Tell them about meat processing and slaughter houses, ask them, what's better. Get meat at the market from a slaughter house or shoot your own out where they had a good life until you shot them?

Most people who don't hunt don't like any kind of killing of an animal. They don't realize where meat comes from, it seems, it doesn't take to much to convince them the animals that are hunted, any legal way, by any legal weapon, had a much better life than an animal that goes to a slaughter house and ends up at the grocery store.

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 01-26-2004 09:08: Message edited by: Tom ]</font>

 

[BHR]

Tom,

I agree with you that most people do not know where meat comes from. But most people do not care to shot domestic animals for what ever reason. They will be the ones deciding if and how we hunt in the future. Most are not opposed to hunting, but do have ideas about what would be considered ethical hunting. We would be foolish to ignore those concerns. I have yet to meet a non hunter who considers shootting domestic captive animals hunting. Maybe you have? Personally, I think this form of sport does hunting way more harm than good. You most likely feel otherwise, good. It is up to each state to decide what is legal and what is illegal. In Montana, captive game "hunts" are illegal. How Bison didn't get included in this law escapes me.

Paul

 

[1_pointer]

I'm pretty sure it is because they're classified as livestock and not wildlife.

 

[Tom]

I wish you guys could come see how some of these the high fence operations work down here. We go into grocery stores in hunting garb here year round because the exotics in them can be hunted year round and the people ask us, "Any luck? What did you see?" People that don't hunt, they love the hunters coming in year round, they appreciate fences keeping the deer off of the road a lot. There are counties around here with 1 deer every 10 acres so many people here know people or have hit deer with their vehicle themselves. The high fences help prevent that. The motel manager at the place I stayed at last weekend with a blackbuck hunter told us about hitting 8 deer with his vehicle in the last 2 years. He drives a lot between 4 am and daylight. One hit was $5000 damage to his vehicle. Some of the high fences are on the busy roads just to help prevent that type of thing. The Southwest Research Institute does that here in San Antonio. They don't allow hunting on their property, but they put up a high fence to protect the deer from getting hit going out onto the city roads. They capture them and take them to places outside the city or just process them for meat. I guess because they are in the city and because there would be big competition for the deer, they just don't hunt them. My neighbor got a part-time guard duty job there as much to just to look at the deer as to get some extra money.

The high fences have been here since the 40s. They maybe more accepted because there's lots of exotic animals in them, more like a zoo, but out in a more natural setting, for sure.

Here's a picture of what people see here, accept these are free ranging, but it doesn't matter here. We saw these axis on saturday.

Most of the axis get hard in June, lost their antlers a month or so ago and like these, are growing them now. Some are hard now too though.

They are great meat, a good hunt, and a great trophy. There are many in high fences here and many like these too, free ranging nowdays.

 

[Washington Hunter]

Tom, isn't anybody in Texas concerned with how all those exotics affect the native whitetail deer? (and mule deer) I'm sure glad we don't have exotics running all over this state, competing with the native deer and elk for habitat and food.

 

[BuzzH]

WH, I think all it boils down to is Texas made a decision to start the exotics, they are there to stay.

Also, with Texas being roughly 98% private, the state cant really control much more than season dates and bag limits on native wildlife. Texas has a huge whitetail population, so if the exotics are effecting them, its not effecting them much. As to the mule deer and pronghorn, I'd find it impossible to believe that the high fences and exotics havent impacted those two species negatively in Texas. But I dont know for sure.

I also believe that exotic hunting and high fences have been part of Texas so long, that its a socially acceptable thing down there, much the same as baiting bears in Idaho.

I dont have a problem with Texas hunting being what it is. Tom is right, to really understand it, you have to go there.

The one thing that would bother me as a resident of Texas is being pretty much forced to either buy a lease or pay to hunt.

I still like the concept of public owned wildlife and equal opportunity for you, me, and the neighbor kid. We all buy the same license and all hunt the same game on public lands. We have a choice to take anything from a B&C buck/bull to a meat critter...the playing field is equal, and success is more or less dictated by effort not just money. I dont have to pay more if I shoot a bigger critter or less if I shoot a smaller one. I paddle my own canoe.

Practically all the better hunting and better animals in Texas are not really based on hunting ability as much as its based on the thickness of your wallet. If you have the cabbage, you can kill the best of whatever you want. If you dont have the $$$, you have to be content with hunting whatever lease you can afford, the very limited public hunts, or small bucks and does.

From my personal standpoint of growing up in Montana, and hunting the West, I'd hate to see it (Western hunting), go the way of Texas. I'm sure if I grew up in Texas, I'd feel differently.

 

[Tom]

It seems to me that the main thing that will stop the western states from going like Texas is that there is public land. Nobody is going to make public land animals become private, that does not happen in Texas even. Our public land does not have private outfitters that take people there, its all controlled by the state, all 2% of it, but there are lots of public hunts here too. I guess states that allow outfitters guaranteed tags for taking people on public land are in danger of loosing public animals to the rich, but we don't allow that here. It is more equal opportunity for rich and for poor, but its not like Idaho where its 60% public land. A state with that much public land can have some just for outfitters too, besides for everyone else.

I forgot about WHs question. Buzz made a good point. We have 4 million whitetail here. We harvest 400,000 to 500,000 per year. We all get, even out of staters, 4 whitetail tags for most of the state and a 5th for south Texas and a mule deer buck tag, every year. We feed animals, so that supports greater populations. We do populations surveys, if there is a conflict, people discount hunts, bring in more hunters, balance the populations out as much as possible. Landowners that I know, won't let us use the 2nd mule deer doe tag that the state gives us, because they want to boost the mule deer population.

If landowners are in an area that is stressed, they can control the exotic population more easily. They can be darted, trapped, and hunted, all for money too. Landowners with high density whitetail populations stressing the habitat can get extra tags to give/sell to their hunters. There are lots of managment options.

The state even made it legal to shoot an aoudad from a helicopter because they are so hard to get and they want to control the population and possible competition to other species that they can bring. The people up in the panhandle wanted aoudad introduced a while back though, because they didn't have much deer there.

I'll have to look up how competitive they are with mule deer, I don't recall. They are here in north Texas and west Texas where the mule deer of the state are also, so they are the exotic there to compete with the mule deer, if they do, but they provide lots of good hunting also, the aoudad. We could check, bossranch.com, they have mule deer and aoudad hunts that are free ranging to get a comparison. I just did, a mule deer hunt is $3000, an aoudad hunt is $3500, so I think they like aoudad just fine. In the hill country part of Texas a good whitetail will bring more money than an aoudad, so I'm surprised its reverse with mule deer and aoudad out west at the Boss Ranch.

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 01-26-2004 15:16: Message edited by: Tom ]</font>

 

[elkfarmer]

sorry if i didn't answer your question directly. anyways, i tell people all aspects of the business. from breed stock, to meat to velvet and yes hunting. no sense in lying about it. and surprise surprise, the only flack i get is by a few on this board. ain't that something.

but i love a good debate, even better when i am right.

 

[BHR]

Tom,

What % of your hunters take their meat home with them?

Elk Farmer,

You didn't answer the false information from the media question.

Paul

 

[elkfarmer]

look at the cwd again topic.

 

[BHR]

Elk Farmer,

I have read a lot of information reguarding CWD. Have you read any of the articles printed in the Boone and Crockett Clubs magazine Fair Chase, that cover CWD and captive game hunting operations? Is this an example of false information from the media?

Paul

 

[Tom]

BHR, Its right near 100% with most hunters here that I know. "Trophy" hunters coming from a distance sometimes donate meat, because its so expensive to ship it and they have plenty of meat from other hunting, so that would drop it below 100%. All the meat processors around here have meat donation connections setup for people like that.

Here's some info. on what aoudad's eat.

from Exotics on the Range by Dr.s Mungall and Sheffield. They also give a history of aoudad in the US, starting at the turn of the century in zoo's. They did so well R.Hearst put some in Ca, then New Mexico and Texas got some. Residents of Palo Duro Canyon in TX requested they be put there by TPWD. They are free ranging is approx. 40 counties of TX from a recent survey.

Does someone have this for mule deer and/or antelope to compare?

BHR, it would be a good article on CWD if it gave some data, some references, like in a scientific journal. Do the articles have that type of info.? What's your take on the meat question you asked me and the answer?

 

[elkfarmer]

BHR, i have never read the B+C hand book. and you have never heard me once say any animals in a fence should be allowed in there. i don't think they should.

so, enlighten me, what do they have to say..

 

[BHR]

Tom,

I'd be willing to bet that very few of the hunters come to hunt behind a fence for the meat. If that were true, there would be a lot more demand for the far cheaper antlerless hunts, correct? Be honest, these guy's go there to get a "trophy". Meat is only a secondary consideration.

So why do you promote these hunts as primarily meat providers, when in fact, a number of the hunters don't even bother to bring their meat home with them? As long as the meat gets consumed by someone, I'm OK with it, but please promote these hunts for what they truely are.

Paul

 

[BHR]

Elk Farmer and Tom,

I tried to find some links to articles I have read in Fair Chase Magazine but have been unable to do so. I did find a site put together in collaboration by B. & C. club, RMEF, and the MDF reguarding CWD. I'll post the link here.

Paul

Here it is:
http://www.cwd-info.org/index.php

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 01-28-2004 08:53: Message edited by: BHR ]</font>