HUNTING AND TROPHY GAINING HONOR THROUGH EFFORT

by Jim Posewitz
November 2010

Hunting in this creative “New World” democracy we call America is still carving a sustainable niche for itself as our rapidly evolving culture closes the first decade of the 21^st Century.  A lot has happened since we became a nation in the 18^th Century, declared wildlife a public resource in the 19^th Century, exploited many species to near extinction in that same century, and then restored almost all the hunted species to a wonderful abundance by the close of the 20^th Century.

            Introduction of a hunter’s sporting code and the emergence of a conservation ethic late in the 19^th Century, advanced by people like George Bird Grinnell, Theodore Roosevelt, and Gifford Pinchot, led to the restoration of a wonderful wildlife abundance.  As this was occurring, hunters gained the cultural respect of the people.  The respect was earned through the conservation investment of sportsmen; and, through the image they presented as hardy outdoorsmen in fair chase pursuit of wild, elusive, maybe even a few dangerous, game animals.  In the process, the animals pursued also acquired a value with the idea of trophy very much a part of the social value of wildlife.  In the process, wildlife trophies became symbols representing hunters gaining honor through effort and the animals too were thus valued.

            As with any activity in a free-enterprise market driven economy, things of value are coveted, taken as commodities, and peddled for a price.  This was true in the 19^th Century when the last buffalo seeking sanctuary in Yellowstone Park were poached for profit.  It is true today as game farmers and high-fence ranchers domesticate deer, elk, and other species for profit.  The peril is that each purchased pseudo-trophy devalues the real thing the community had come to value as totally wild and traditionally earned through personal effort.

            The privatizing, commercializing and domesticating of American wildlife is not a new phenomenon.  Theodore Roosevelt spoke directly to the subject in Outdoor Pastimes of An American Hunter in 1905 when he wrote: “The professional market hunter who kills game for the hide or for the feathers or for the meat or to sell antlers and other trophies ….and the rich people, who are content to buy what they have not the skill to get by their own exertions – these are the men who are the real enemies of game.”  At the time, he was President of the United States.

            On the positive side, there are still legions of American hunters in fair chase pursuit of wildlife out on the great American commons – gaining honor through effort and collecting trophies as honorable and rock solid as Mount Rushmore.  Their activity and character was described by the last president whose image we chiseled into that national icon.  Here is how TR described the hunter and the hunt:

When hunting him (wapiti) …he must be followed on foot, and the man who follows him must be sound in limb and wind.”

“…skill and patience, and the capacity to endure fatigue and exposure, must be shown by the successful hunter.”

“We knew toil and hardship and thirst…but we felt the beat of hardy life in our veins, and ours was the glory of work and the joy of living.”

“If they would only keep to rowboats or canoes, and use oar or paddle themselves, they would get infinitely more benefit than by having their work done for them by gasoline.”

“I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach the highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.”

            Writing in his biography Gifford Pinchot, the father of American forestry, had cause to describe the character of TR.  While scores of biographers have written volumes trying to capture the essence of TR, it took Pinchot only nine words to describe what the man was all about.  Pinchot wrote: “He was an outdoor man – more a wilderness hunter.” TR’s observations on gaining honor through effort are as valuable today as they were the day he penned them.  The value our society places on wildlife trophies was built on the reality of what it takes to earn success afield – not really on the dimensions of the animal thus taken.  Each commercially manufactured pseudo-trophy or catered easy kill only contributes to the inevitable erosion and ultimate loss of those values.

It's what you do after the shot

The other day a fellow came up to me to ask if I would sign a copy of my book, Vermont Wild. He then said, "You arrested me years ago for shooting an illegal deer, do you remember me?" I had to admit I didn't but if he remeinded me of the facts I might. Turned out he had shot at a legal buck, and hit a doe. He didn't realize it until he came out of the woods and his neighbor pointed out a blood trail coming down the hill. This fellow then figured out what happened and proceeded to try and cover up what had happened. With the help of good tracking snow he eventually fessed up and settled it thru court diversion.
The clipping below shows a better way to do it. Like my neighboring warden would say, "Everyone makes mistakes, but the measure of a man is what they do after." Very true...

100 yard bow shot at a deer? Wrong!

There is a discussion going on over at the On Your Own Adventures blog about a hunting show bow hunter talking about taking a shot at over 100 yards at a deer. He claims he can make that shot constantly on targets.
My take on long bow shots is that anything over 45 yards is a no shoot, no matter how good a shot you are. At that range even the fastest bow will not get the arrow to the deer faster than it can react to the sound or sight of the arrow coming toward it. Plus all the usual problems with the animal moving just as you release,,,
Clean kill is a core ethic for hunters. We all know that lots of stuff can go wrong, but it is our responsibility to reduce the chances of a wounding shot as much as we can before taking a shot. One quote that comes to mind is, " you don't shoot to see if you can hit your target, you only shoot when you know you can hit it."
There was a variation on this in one of the hunting magazines a few years ago with a very long rifle shot and the writer justified it because it was a once in a life time trophy. Which sounded to me he valued this deer less than a normal deer by taking a much higher probability wounding shot. More likely he got sucked into the mind set that he was hunting to kill a big animal for bragging rights. It that is true, why not use poison, or napalm or a machine gun?

VT Lawmakers Look To Reverse 'Pete The Moose" Law

The Public Trust of Wildlife got a boost today here in Vermont. Both the Burlington Free Press and Vermont Public Radio had feature pieces on a new bill designed to repeal the "Nelson Amendment" that passed in the 11th hour last year that gave control of native deer and moose to the operator of a shooting park in Irasburg. When the give-a-way of our public property became known, Orion began a campaign to educate Vermonters about the public trust doctrine. Using several papers commissioned by Orion in an earlier fight in Montana, it soon was clear to hunters and many legislators that this amendment was in violation of hundreds of years of common law and case law.
We then convened a meeting of the hunter/conservation leaders and legislators to craft a coordinated plan for reversing the damage and restoring the public trust of wildlife. Representative Kate Webb and Fish and Wildlife Committee chair David Deen crafted a draft bill. After input from the group at our second meeting the bill was finalized. With over 30 sponsors and the support of Governor Elect Peter Shumlin, it appears there is a good chance it will pass. However, the owner of Big Rack Ridge is unlikely to return ownership of "his" deer and moose to the citizens without a fight.

From Vermont Public Radio:

Lawmakers Look To Reverse 'Pete The Moose" Law

Listen (13:04)

Tuesday, 12/21/10 12:50pm

Jane Lindholm

AP/Toby Talbot

Pete the moose eats leaves in a tree in Irasburg, Vt., Thursday, July 30, 2009.

 

Incoming Governor Peter Shumlin and other legislators are hoping to reverse a law that went into effect this year that ended up giving the owner of an elk hunting park custody of all the wild moose and deer on the property--including Pete the Moose. Burlington Free Press reporter Candace Page discusses the potential change to the law, and how it would impact Pete the Moose. 

From the Burlington Free Press:

Politics and Government

Vermont lawmakers set to reverse 'Pete the Moose' law

By Candace Page, Free Press Staff Writer • Monday, December 20, 2010 

geKey lawmakers and Gov.-elect Peter Shumlin are ready to reverse a 2010 law drafted in secret and passed at the 11th hour that gave an Northeast Kingdom farmer ownership of wild deer and moose on his property, an action that provoked an outcry among hunters.

Key lawmakers and Gov.-elect Peter Shumlin are ready to reverse a 2010 law drafted in secret and passed at the 11th hour that gave an Northeast Kingdom farmer ownership of wild deer and moose on his property, an action that provoked an outcry among hunters.

A bill already in draft form restates the longstanding principle that wild animals belong to all people of Vermont. It requires the wild deer and moose trapped inside Doug Nelson’s elk hunting park to be removed, probably through hunting. It also allows for protection of young Pete the Moose, an orphaned resident of the park.

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Federal Court Of Appeals Ruling Deals Blow To Wildlife Conservation

From the USSF:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                      

Contact:     Greg R. Lawson (614) 888-4868 x 214 December 21, 2010                                                          Sharon Hayden (614) 888-4868 x 226

Federal Court Of Appeals Ruling Deals Blow To Wildlife Conservation (Columbus, OH) -The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a lower court ruling which protected active wildlife conservation efforts on National Wildlife Refuge lands. In 2007, environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) after the FWS had restored wildlife watering devices within the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona on lands designated as “wilderness areas.”  The watering devices are critical to the survival of bighorn sheep and other desert species. The groups’ lawsuit claimed that the Wilderness Act prohibited the FWS from constructing the watering devices because the Act required that wilderness areas be left totally unaffected by human activities.  The Service, U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation (USSAF), and a host of other conservation groups argued that the wilderness designation within the Refuge did not prohibit the FWS from engaging in active wildlife conservation efforts.  Overall, the USSAF argued that the Refuge was required to be managed to conserve wildlife pursuant to the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act, even on lands designated as wilderness areas. In 2008, Judge Mary H. Murguia of the U.S. District Court for Arizona sided with the FWS and USSAF and found that the Wilderness Act did not prohibit active wildlife management in the Kofa areas. By a 2 to 1 vote, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision.  The Court found that the FWS could not construct or maintain watering devices unless it found that devices were “necessary” for bighorn sheep conservation.  It also found that the FWS could not show that the devices were “necessary” for sheep conservation until the FWS showed first that banning hunting, banning sheep translocations, controlling mountain lions, and restricting other forms of human visitation would not sufficiently conserve the sheep. “This is truly a misguided and unfortunate ruling by the Ninth Circuit,” said Bud Pidgeon,  USSAF president and CEO.  “Precedent from this lawsuit could severely handicap the FWS’s wildlife conservation efforts in the future.” In light of the recent decision, the USSAF will be examining all remaining options to minimize the effects of the Ninth Circuit’s ruling. Joining the USSAF in the lawsuit were several other conservation groups including: Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society, Arizona Deer Association, Arizona Antelope Foundation, Wild Sheep Foundaton, Yuma Valley Rod & Gun Club, Safari Club International and the National Rifle Association. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

THUG shotguns and TV show - you've got to be kidding!

This from the Outdoor Wire.
It makes you wonder, what are these people thinking??? Naming a series of shotguns THUG and a TV show! If some anti group smeard  us with this term the NRA would be all over them. But the marketers at Mossberg and Mossy Oak do it and we all roll over. As Pogo famously said, "We have met the enemy and it is us."

Turkey THUGS Go Afield with Mossberg Shotguns

Mossberg delivers four new high-performance Turkey THUG shotgun models, each engraved with "Turkey THUG Series" on the receiver. Mossberg Turkey THUG shotguns will be the exclusive shotguns used in Mossy Oak's Turkey THUG television program in 2011-2012, which airs on the Pursuit Channel. | For More...

Executive Director Nuse Tapped to Advise on Hiring New VT Fish and Wildlife Commissioner

Newly appointed Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, Deb Markowitz,  asked me to help identify the most important atributes for a new Commissioner of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department and to assist in the hiring process. Today, along with former commissioner and NWF regional representative, Steve Wright, we went over the resumes' with Secretary Markowitz and narrowed the field to three. She will now interview the finalist and make her recommendation to Governor Elect Shumlin.
I was honored to be asked to assist and heartened by the openness of the process. It was also clear that comptience, experience, knowledge of the science and the people served by the Department was important. Politics was not on the list.
I have a very good feeling that the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Dept will be under excellent management come January and they will be well supported by Governor Shumlin and Secretary Markowitz.

Wildlife War Is Not Over Yet

The first game warden murdered in the US was under the employ of the Audubon Society working on Pelican Island in Florida. The latest was a Warden in my birth state of Pennsylvania. We should never forget there is a "thin green line" of dedicated folks out there protecting our wildlife from the greedy, the lazy and the criminal.

BY JOHN MESSEDER, Gettysburg Times – Nov. 22, 2010

The call went out over the radio for the officer identified as 4-16.

“Sir, there is no response from 4-1-6.”

“Please take 4-1-6, Wildlife Conservation officer David Grove, Badge Number J2038, out of service for the final time. Radio Call 4-1-6 shall be retired forever.”

Pennsylvania Wildlife Conservation Officer David L. Grove, was shot and killed at 10:38 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 11, by a man thought to have been poaching deer.

The dialog retiring Grove’s radio call identifier and badge number was recited Sunday evening, as he was interred at Green Hill Cemetery, in Waynesboro.

About 2,000 people filled the Waynesboro Senior High School auditorium Sunday afternoon for the funeral service. A lone bagpiper, WCO Jack Lucas led a detail of fellow Wildlife Conservation Officers into the auditorium, carrying Grove’s flag-draped coffin.

A childhood friend, Josh Miles recalled Grove’s deep laugh, which he described as “more like a chuckle, that came all the way down from his toes, … pounding his fist on the table, wondering if he was going to be OK.”

“I’ll never forget that laugh,” Josh said. “I never want anyone … to forget that laugh.”

Another close friend talked of taking Grove to his first ice hockey game, and making him a Pittsburgh Penguins fan.

“(Grove) love-hate relationship with the game of golf,” Tony Myers said. “It was the only time he tried to not spend too much time in the woods.”

David’s brother, Chad, in a voice broken by tears and sniffs, described the brother with whom he went to school, hunted and fished, and got into mischief, “and also the discipline that followed those (latter) events.”

After recalling his brother’s relationship of support with the children in his family, “It will be hard to watch them grow without you there,” he said to his departed brother.

WCO Kris Krebs worked with Grove in Centre County, and during his turn to talk at the funeral called him “brother officer (and) closest friend.”

The night Grove was shot, Krebs said he was waiting for dinner to be served to himself and other officers in a Denny’s restaurant when he talked with Grove by phone.

“You know, real game wardens aren’t sitting in a booth in Denny’s,” Grove told his friends.

Dinner was served, the phone call ended.

A few hours later, Grove was dead.

Grove’s pastors described the intense faith, in a life that included two years at Appalachian Bible College before he switched to become a Pennsylvania Wildlife Conservation Officer.

“It wasn’t something he did to earn money, but something he felt called to do,” said Pastor Brad Heacock.

At the end of the service, an otherwise silent audience punctuated a video of Grove’s life with sniffles and stifled coughs, and a piano accompanied “Amazing Grace.”

Gov. Ed Rendell, who had attended in silence, and was not introduced, left the auditorium quietly.

Outside, more well-wishers lined both sides of the two-mile long route from the high school to Green Hill Cemetery. The procession required nearly an hour to enter the cemetery, where Grove was saluted, words of faith were spoken, a Pa. State Police helicopter executed a flyover, and Grove’s radio call and badge number were “retired forever.”

The suspect in Grove’s killing was arrested Nov. 12. District Attorney Shawn Wagner has said he likely will seek the death penalty; killing a police officer is one of a limited number of convictions that carry that penalty in Pennsylvania.

Grove was the first Pennsylvania game warden killed in the line of duty in 95 years.

Draft bill to reaffirm the public trust of wildlife in Vermont

At our last coordinating meeting for the Public Trust, Rep David Dean distributed copies of the bill he intends to introduce in the next session of the Vermont Legislature. We had a good discussion on the proposed bill and several areas will be modified before it is introduced. Copied below is the statement of purpose of the draft bill:

Statement of purpose:  This bill proposes to declare that the fish and wildlife of Vermont are held in trust by the state for the benefit of the citizens of Vermont and shall not be reduced to private ownership.  The bill would also declare that the fish and wildlife of Vermont are owned and controlled by the state in its sovereign capacity as the trustee for the citizens of the state.  In addition, the bill would repeal the regulatory authority of the agency of agriculture, food and markets over the wild cervidae at a captive cervidae farm in Irasburg.  Regulatory authority over the wild cerivade at the Irasburg facility would be transferred to the department of fish and wildlife.

The finalized bill should be ready in early December. Then the work will begin to get it passed in a timely manner.

Rasch on High fence hunting

Just ran across this post by Albert Rasch at The Rausch Outdoor Chronicles blog: High Fence Hunting: Is the Public the Problem?

I really like some of what Rasch has to say here. An excerpt:

While I agree with the premise that American wildlife is a public resource, I object to the idea that because I own the real estate they inhabit, I should be prohibited from profiting from their presence or for granting someone access to them, whatever the reason. Never mind that I have a very real interest in wildlife management, once that fence goes up I am publicly stating that I choose to use the land I own in any way I wish, from plowing it up and flattening it out for mono-culture corn growing, to highly ethical permaculture based land use. Regardless, from the perspective of anyone but the landowner, access is now prohibited in very real terms, to not only the real estate, but from everything animate and inanimate upon the dirt.

Again, in principal I do not disagree with Tovar and the others with respect to the unpalatability of some enclosed or put and take operations. My objection to banning the use of high fence hunting is simply one of liberty, private property, and the libertarian ideals. Bad apples will be weeded out, of that there is no doubt - the internet makes darn sure that everything gets way out in the open - and the market soon adjusts to the realities on the ground. But seriously, how many operations are there out there with an elk in a cage and a corral for some knuckle head to shoot it in? How many of you know of someone with a twenty acre high fence enclosure, billing itself as a trophy hunting mecca? Business excesses of that sort, should they exist, can be dealt with through the legislative process if the market forces don't resolve it. . . .

The probability of someone hand feeding an elk, supplementing his diet with high protein pellets and vitamin tablets, in an attempt to raise a 400 class bull, is pretty high. If that person then releases it into an enclosure regardless of size, shoots it, and then hangs it on the wall for all to see, that's his choice. It wouldn't be my choice of course. It might not be yours either. Now if he sold you the right to shoot that bull, that would be your choice to buy it... or not. It's up to you. I just don't see the moral dilemma.

My argumentative buddy Dukkiller ( The Daily Limit, see his post The “Facts” About High Fence Shooting?!?. He is a lawyer after all..) often reminds me that the problem starts when you call that hunting. I don't disagree with him entirely; I wouldn't call that hunting either. In some cases its plain old shooting. But that's none of my business. That's the chump who paid big money for a semi-tame elk so he could hang it on the wall, that's his business. I would prefer that he keeps his business to himself too.

Rasch is led to ask "why High Fence ranches exist in the first place," and while I am not sure I agree 100% with his market analysis, I do agree that high fence ranches symbolize a failure of modern, publicly-funded game management to give hunters what they desire. The state of Pennsylvania, for example, has just spent the past ten years trying to implement the rudiments of a Quality Deer Management system. It has not been an easy process, and the jury is still out whether it works or not. If private companies can do better what the state cannot, then I think we should at least have that discussion.

The failure of states like Pennsylvania to produce a quality deer hunting experience for a certain percentage of hunters seems to me to be another casualty of an exclusive "we hunt for food" philosophy. While many hunters enjoy eating the food that hunting yields, food is not the sole motivator for many hunters. Managers who downplay other motivations--including aesthetic motivations for sport and trophy--perhaps are guilty of a kind of blind spot.

At any rate, a very thought-provoking piece by Albert Rasch.

Honor the hunt by hunting with honor

We have had some discussion amongst the Orion board about having a “tagline” or a slogan to fix in people’s minds when they think of Orion. One candidate is the title of this post: “Honor the hunt by hunting with honor.”

Some of us like this line, some don’t. Advantages include the connotations with fair chase, respect for game animals and for the sport of hunting, and promoting the positive idea of “honorable behavior” or hunting honorably when no one is looking.

Negative reactions have focused on the aristocratic connotations of the term “honor.” As in “Your honor” and deference to high rank.

Although some our board members are sensitive to the negative connotations of “honor,” they argue that allowing some interpretation of what it means to hunt with honor isn't necessarily a bad thing. They point out that to some people honor will mean respecting the animal, to others it may mean respecting other hunters and landowners, and being true to their own value system.

To me, honor as an ethical term carries more positive than negative associations. When we speak of an honorable person, we think approvingly of an honest and trustworthy individual who is able to follow his/her convictions and act with integrity. In this way, honor and integrity function as moral virtues. “He is a man of honor and therefore will keep his word.”

In one of the few sustained book-length works on the topic, Honor, anthropologist Frank Henderson Stewart argues that honor is best understood as a right to respect. This interpretation, too, has certain advantages to hunters. Ethical hunters command the respect of their fellow hunters. At the same time ethical hunters ask that society extend the same respect to them and to ethical hunting.

Stewart reviews the range of meanings that includes the idea of honor as a moral virtue. He cites a famous passage by the Renaissance humanist François Rabelais that captures the essence of this meaning: “Free people, well-born, well-instructed, conversing in good company, have by nature an instinct and a spur that always impels them to virtuous behavior and restrains them from vice: they call it honor.”

For hunters, the Rabelaisian meaning is analogous: Ethical hunters, well-brought up, well-instructed, surrounded by a supportive hunting community, have instinctively a trait that always impels them to ethical hunting behavior and restrains them from its opposite: that trait is honor.

Or we might think in terms of sportsmanship. Sportsmen do not take advantage of the animal, rather they give it. Fair chase is all about giving every possible advantage to the animal within the limits of the hunter’s own individual abilities and skill level. The novice hunter begins on a more level playing field than the expert; the expert accordingly restricts his advantage over the game with ever more restrictive techniques, including stricter rules, less efficient technologies, and voluntary restraint. The advanced deer hunter may forego the gun for a bow, impose antler restrictions on himself, and hunt only by stalking his prey on the ground rather than using a tree stand. Each of these voluntary, self-imposed choices confer advantage to the animal while removing advantages from the hunter.

These voluntary choices are born of respect for the game animal, but they are also in an important sense born out of respect for the hunt itself. Hunting does not take place in a cultural vacuum, but instead occurs within an ongoing historical tradition that identifies the moral bounds of honorable and ethical hunting.

Fair chase is sportsmanship, therefore, in an important sense. Honorable fair chase hunting is hunting with honor, but fair chase hunting is also deserving of honor—that is, the honorable fair chase hunter is someone who has earned the right to society’s respect.

I believe this is the image of hunting that Orion the Hunter’s Institute wants to communicate and promote. We should embrace the fact that the ethical hunter deserves respect.

We should embrace the fact that the ethical hunter deserves a kind of “deference to high rank.” After all, the ethical hunter who holds to a high standard of fair chase is truly elite, in the best sense of the word.

We should embrace the fact that the ethical hunter is worthy of our respect and deference both. In the same way that we defer to skill and knowledge in other contexts—dentists and doctors come to mind—we should hold up the example of good hunters as models to follow. We can and should defer to the experience of skilled hunters, and we should hold their hunting knowledge in the high esteem it deserves.

In this way, Orion the Hunter’s Institute can promote a vision of admittedly elite hunting, and of elite hunters. Why wouldn’t we? Elite hunters, that is to say, who honor the hunt by hunting with honor.

ND Hunter's for Fair Chase Measure

KFGO pod cast featuring Orion founder Jim Posewitz talking about hunting heritage and how it relates to high fence shooting operations:

ND Hunter's for Fair Chase Measure 2 pt1
Dick Monson and Jim Posewitz, North Dakota Hunter's for Fair Chase, talks about Measure 2 on the November 2 ballot.

Fish & Wildlife Commissioner raps elk hunting park plan

From the Burlington Free Press:

Politics and Government

CANDACE PAGE, Free Press

A trophy elk strolls along a road at Big Rack Ridge in Irasburg on Monday, June 14, 2010. It is part of a herd of 50 or more male elk on the square-mile property. Owner Doug Nelson of Derby sells elk hunts for $2,000 to $7,500 to clients from across the Northeast.

• Purchase this Photo

By Candace Page, Free Press Staff Writer • Wednesday, October 27, 2010

• Debate continues to swirl around Big Rack Ridge, the hunting park in Irasburg that is home to non-native elk, exotic deer, native white-tailed deer and an orphaned moose known as Pete.

In a six-page letter to the Agriculture Agency, Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Wayne Laroche says the park’s proposed management plan fails to comply with state regulations and might not protect the health of the park habitat, the captive animals or Vermont’s wild deer.

“The plan offers little, if any, assurance that management of this captive herd will be conducted in such a manner as to secure the health of Vermont’s free-ranging white-tailed deer and moose population,” Laroche wrote late last week.
He was responding to a plan filed by Doug Nelson, a dairy farmer who also raises trophy-sized elk, which are confined to Big Rack Ridge, where hunters pay to shoot them. The management plan was written by Nelson’s consultant, James Kroll of Texas, a wildlife biologist and an expert in managing captive deer.
Nelson and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment about Laroche’s critique.
Laroche has no power to approve or deny the plan. In legislation written behind closed doors earlier this year, state lawmakers stripped his department of oversight of the Nelson park and transferred that authority to the Agriculture Agency.
Legislators acted after public protests that Fish and Wildlife rules would require killing all the native deer and moose trapped inside Nelson’s five miles of fencing as a disease-prevention measure. State wildlife biologists say the non-native animals brought to the hunting park could spread a feared illness, chronic wasting disease, to Vermont’s wild herd.
Protesters were defending Pete the Moose, an orphaned bull moose adopted by a local man and later housed at Big Rack Ridge. Pete became a cause celebre, with his own Facebook page and rallies.
But the legislators’ decision also sparked outrage, this time on the part of some hunters who fear not only the spread of deer diseases but viewed the law change as giving Nelson ownership of the white-tailed deer inside his fence, deer that by longstanding doctrine are considered the property of all citizens.

read more:

Agriculture Agency Denies Management Plan for Elk Farm

From blurt Seven Days staff blog:

Agriculture Agency Denies Management Plan for Elk Farm

Posted by Shay Totten on October 27, 2010 at 12:30 PM in Current Affairs, Politics, Serious News, Vermont | Permalink

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The Vermont Agency of Agriculture has rejected plans to manage wildlife on a 700-acre Irasburg game preserve owned by Doug Nelson, whose herd of elk became famous this year when it was joined by a moose — Pete the Moose.
The agency said Nelson's 20-page proposal offered few details about how he planned to ensure that his captive animials would not mix with the native species. The proposal also failed to show how Nelson planned to accurately catalogue all of the animals currently penned inside his 700-acre Irasburg preserve, and it provided the agency with no plans for how it would manage the herds going forward.
In a separate letter to Nelson the agency did approve elements of his fencing plan, which includes adding a second perimeter fence around his game preserve as a way to keep native species out and nonnative species in. However, the agency asked him to add one electrified wire at 54 inches from the ground. Nelson has proposed only going as high as 42 inches.
The rejection is the latest in a nearly one-year saga that started when a national public relations campaign was launched to "Save Pete the Moose" from being killed by state officials. Nelson has been flaunting state authority for years, and the state was trying to force Nelson to find better ways to keep wild and captive species from mixing. Their fear? Chronic wasting disease, a brain disease that affects cervids in a similar way to how "mad cow disease" affects bovines.
Part of that plan included a culling effort to thin out the herds through controlled hunts.
The public outcry eventually led to a last-minute, secretive legislative deal that ensured that Nelson could ensnare, and eventually kill, all wild animals found on his property. Nelson also owns a private stock of breeding elk in Derby.
In short, Pete may have been "saved", but Nelson also got to keep all of Pete's friends to hunt at a later date. That outraged many hunters and wildlife advocates who believe the move violated the stae's public trust doctrine. How? By handing over a public asset— the wildlife — to a private individual to later for profit.

Part of the last-minute legislative deal included a caveat that the Agency of Agriculture — not the Department of Fish and Wildlife — would regulate Nelson's herd. For years, Nelson had rebuffed efforts by DFW to regulate his herd of elk. In part, because DFW wanted Nelson to have a better culling plan to thin out his herd, and to ensure that wild deer were not mingling with some of his own captive deer.
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