Game ranches & Ethical Hunting - What's your take?

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Cob

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Attached is a pic of an elk that i discovered on an adjacent property - It really caught me off guard, & It's the first one i've ever seen in the North Florida area.

I don't advocate "canned hunts", but as a forester, routinely work with landowner's that incorporate the "high fence" operations as a part of their land mgt. strategies. The landowner's are typically people that are combining respected land management practices with game raching as part of a profit strategy associated with land management. I have established relationships with Landowner's & People, many of who i call my friends, that are managing the land for timber, ( my salary comes from that), as well as for hunts like in the attached pic.

- With habitat fragmentation & the crazy population center's south of here (Orlando/ Tampa/ & further south), they are meeting a high demand for a successul hunt, and some are making a nice profit.

I would rather take a chance on a free ranging animal in another state 3,000 miles away than kill the same animal 1/4 mile down the road, without a sporting chance. I hate to say it's a temptation that i wish did not exist. If you do the math, you could harvest a better scoring bull elk for less than half the price of what you could do a public land hunt for, across the country, with 100% chance of success. - I understand the economics, the reasoning. but ethically unsound.

I'm just curious has anyone ever given any thought to this before?
I do not mean shooting the elk in the pen, i mean the whole "gammet" of game ranches in general?
 

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I have no problem with the existence of game ranches at all. The only time I get worked up about the ranch that I hunt alongside, is when I'm unsuccessful on the public land I'm on, and I can glass elk by the dozens grazing in the middle of the day, wide out in the open spaces, on that ranch. I'm jealous, that's all. But they can do whatever they want with their property and money.
 
If it pays the bills I have no more problem with them than I do with locker plants or restaurants for that matter.

You should look at them as live stock at that point not game animals.
 
For me, I just don't like it when people hold out their "trophies" as something that they weren't. If you know the stigma about hunting behind high fences, don't lie to me about where your animal came from. If you're willing to spend your money to do it, then be honest about it. Guys like that dude who claimed to have shot the new Colorado record elk with a bow last year and then submitted it to B&C, make me sick.

That being said, there's obviously a market for this sort of thing, so what do I care how someone makes their money, as long as it's legal.

I lived and worked in South Texas, and can see what kind of incredible management can occur with high fences, but it's still not for me.
 
I personally have never cared for the thought of hunting inside a high fenced area.

Maybe if it were tens of thousands of acres. And the animals could actually live a free range lifestyle. But so many are small, few hundred acre tracts that can't allow for this. The animals are "ranched", fed from the backs of pick-up trucks, until they are of a particularly profitable size, then are sold to prospective "hunters" for a set price.

Yes, you got a beautiful head for the wall but as I see it, it may as well be made out of plaster and fake fur. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just saying it's not right for me.
 
I look at game ranches as a way of putting meat in the freezer that provide an opportunity I may not otherwise have.

If I go to Africa, I can't bring the meat home. If I go to CO for elk, hunting public land, I may be unsucessful, and spend a lot of money being so. Game ranches are not hunting in my opinion, but I see nothing wrong with them.

If it's meat for the freezer I don't much care if you lead it in to the corral on a leash and it comes to you by calling it's name. If it's a hunt, it needs to take place in it's native locale, with no guarantee of sucess.

BikerRN
 
I don't think many people consider a game ranch hunt to be meat in the freezer. If that were the case, it would be cheaper to just to go buy a steer.
 
It's not ONLY about the meat and it's probably not ONLY about the trophy mount. The people who use those businesses want to be catered to. They want a guaranteed kill, they probably want the meat too, they want someone else to butcher the animal and they probably also want a nice specimen for the wall. They want lodging and meals thrown in and they don't want to camp in a tent. They pay high prices for all that.

I don't care. If I had a lot of money, I might do it too. Things being the way they are, I have no interest in it though.

When I began elk hunting public lands, I knew that I was in for a commitment and a lot of hard work. Some people want to go elk hunting one time. They want to do it on their terms and they don't want to put in the time and work that someone will when they plan to hunt every year for the rest of their able life. Some people just want to check that box on their bucket list and try surfing next year.

That's my guess.
 
This type of "hunting" is profane! This isn't hunting folks, its ridiculous, wanton, money grabbing. I've hunted here in Colorado for 45 years, gotten one nice bull elk, several deer in that time, but all by legal hunting methods, not trapped hunting. As one earlier poster stated, about on the other side of the fence the elk were grazing, while nothing on this side, this is more the norm where we've hunted too, most times getting nothing for our efforts! Thats alright, I'd rather come home with nothing, than to stoop to paying some money-grabbing rancher who hasn't any ethics at all. The types of folks who'd pay to "not" sleep in a tent, eat around a camp fire, not ride horses 10 miles in to camp...... pity the fool !!!
 
If you're hunting on those game farms, do you have to keep the heads?

I've got friends and relatives who hunt a lot and they seem to keep a lot of the heads around. I'd rather not, as it seems to be just a reminder that I had to kill something in order to eat it. But it seems there's some ethical concern with wild free-range hunting where you're supposed to hang onto the front end, which seems expensive and takes up a lot of room. Maybe with these game farms there's less of the traditional ethics involved and you can just take the meat and let them dispose of the non-edible parts of the carcass?
 
Capitalism and freedom go hand in hand. If someone wants to raise animals for a canned hunt, more power too them. I don't think ethics play much of a part in this as long as the animal is treated in a humane matter.

A "canned hunt" is fee for service business transaction and should be looked at as such.

Is it pathetic? Yeah, in many cases I think it is. Will I take issue someone who hunts fenced animals? No. Its a free country and it's none of my dang business!
 
I think canned hunting is stupid and pointless, and it's not something I'd ever want to participate in (there's really no challenge to it) but from an ethical standpoint, I don't understand how it's any different than raising livestock for slaughter.

It should also be noted that the only chance that some species may have for survival in the near future is game ranches as they're heavily poached in their native range. Game ranches serve as a sort of a Noah's Ark from which the species native habitats can be replenished after poaching is under control and conditions are right.
 
In North Florida, The land managers always try to manage a herd in a manner that is 2-6 times normal carrying capacity, and have to suppplementally feed the animals routinely. There are different ways of setting them up, and I have seen pens from 1 acre - 5,000+ acres. You name it, and it could be in there.

In general, some of the largest racks i have ever seen were located behind a "high fence", and the trophy fees that the managers informed me that they were getting was unbeleivable.

Some are going as far as to ship in sperm from northern states for A.I, still others are modifying antlers while in velvet to induce abnormal growth that will overall "score" higher. the antlers are modified mechanically, and some are eveen experimenting with growth drugs. The practices seem downright un-natural when looked at from a wildlife side, though are common when looking at them as live stock, such as cattle.
 
Depends on how big the fenced area is - some of those exotic hunts on ranches in Texas might as well be free-range hunts with the size of the property.

I guess I don't see how folks who think this is BS can justify Eastern deer and bear hunting where you plant the food or set the bait/feeder for several months so you can then sit in a tree and take your pick of which one to shoot - that isn't deer hunting IMO, but it IS legal - as is this operation
 
I'm not a hunter, but driving some rich guy out to shoot the animals from an air-conditioned Escalade SUV with a crew following to handle the dirty work just doesn't seem right to me.
 
If I go to Africa, I can't bring the meat home. If I go to CO for elk, hunting public land, I may be unsucessful, and spend a lot of money being so. Game ranches are not hunting in my opinion, but I see nothing wrong with them.

If it's meat for the freezer I don't much care if you lead it in to the corral on a leash and it comes to you by calling it's name. If it's a hunt, it needs to take place in it's native locale, with no guarantee of sucess.
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very well said. None of us are opposed to buying a used car, but we've all seen those dealerships who use spray paint and tire shine to pass off a lemon. I wouldn't do business with those. same for a ranch that "wires up" the antlers like a kid in braces! but 10,000 acres+ and the "managers" shoot ugly/small/weak deer in order to build a nice population.. thats not too big of a deal to me.

I watch the bucks of tecomate and it cracks me up. They have the deer named and on camera. one time a customer wanted to shoot a deer and ol' mike whats-his-name said "no were saving that one for my daughter in a couple years" I kinda just chuckled like whatever! I also love it when they mow down a big path in the morning cover the road with a salt spreader filled with deer food, and they get all shaken up and freaking out like they did something amazing. there will be 20+ deer 10+ turkeys, a few pigs, and a dog or two all piled up in a 200yrd stretch and they act like they found sasquatch.
 
I'm not a hunter, but driving some rich guy out to shoot the animals from an air-conditioned Escalade SUV with a crew following to handle the dirty work just doesn't seem right to me.
Click to expand...

Try an African safari...where the game can kill and eat you - might change your mind about them "helpers"
 
I am confused over the legality of high fence ranches.

I understand that game animals are traditionally owned by the state, hence the authority of game wardens.

I have seen advertisements for "stud" bucks for sale to add genetic heft to a managed herd. These cost high dollars!

How can you "own" a game animal if they belong to the state?

A farmer owns his livestock-does building a high fence make a rancher the owner of all the game he can fence in?

If not, how can you buy and sell live deer to improve"your" herd? How can you prove which ones are "yours" and which are the state's?

If they are in fact livestock, are there still "hunting" restrictions, or can you harvest at will?

It seems that there is a conflict between traditional game laws and the high fence concept.

Bob
 
The scenario leaves me cold. If you have enough money to do it, do the real thing and go to where your prey is in its natural habitat.

Now, if I may, let me turn this a bit sideways. Wingshooters, what do you feel about shooting in areas where the birds are planted?

Clutch
 
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