Canned hunts likely spawn big waste

Elk hunting is hard work.

If it were easy, it wouldn’t be elk hunting.

Deep in the Idaho backcountry near Riggins last weekend, I passed several young men running pack strings for an outfitter on a week of 14-mile round-trip hauls to stock camps with hay and gear for elk seasons that will start in September.

But even with the tents up and the wood split, the hunts won’t be a cakewalk for the clients who ride in later.

Once the season opens, guided and unguided hunters alike will have to follow Idaho elk into elk country. Open grassy meadows are an important part of elk range, but they’re never far from a steep, dark snarl of brush and blowdowns.

Blood surges through your system twice when the hard work pays off: When you squeeze the trigger or release the arrow, and when you start moving the meat.

So I was blown away this week when I read news reports that Idaho’s Department of Lands was considering a proposal to lease 2,000 acres of state endowment land to extend a fenced elk-shooting ranch owned by a former pro football player.

We’re talking about the great hunting state of Idaho.

Rulon Jones, former defensive lineman for the Denver Broncos, already has a shooter-elk operation in Utah and he’s planning to spread the thrill of the non-hunt to Idaho for fees ranging from about $5,900 to $12,000 a bull.

Maybe Idaho sportsmen are raising some hell, because a few days after news of the proposal circulated through the press, Jones announced Wednesday that he’s withdrawing his request to lease and fence state public lands.

But he still plans to close up 11 miles of 8-foot-high fence around one of his private Idaho ranches and release domestic deer and elk for canned hunts.

Idaho Fish and Game Department officials oppose canned hunting ranches and game ranching, but they have nearly no jurisdiction over the operations.

That hasn’t stopped Lloyd Oldenburg from confronting the issue.

Oldenburg is liberated from the political pressure in Boise following his retirement a few years ago after 12 years as the Idaho Fish and Game Department’s wildlife research manager and 14 years as the state big-game manager.

“All that experience doesn’t necessarily count much when you try to talk science to the legislature,” he chuckled.

In his retirement, Oldenburg has devoted himself to a villain that could undo his life’s work and slaughter the sport of big-game hunting, not just in Idaho, but throughout the West.

“Chronic wasting disease is real and it’s serious,” he said. “Montana, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington all recognized that by banning game farming, but Idaho still allows it and even encourages it.”

The disease, which is highly contagious and fatal to deer and elk, has predominantly been found in captive big-game populations in Canada and Midwestern states as well as in wild deer and elk in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, and most recently in Wisconsin and New Mexico.

CWD has not yet been traced to wild game in Idaho, Washington or Oregon.

Oldenburg originally opposed game farming during his years as state big-game manager because he didn’t want to take risks with the genetics of Idaho’s wild elk.

“One downed fence and you’ve got trouble,” he said.

His vocal opposition to the commercial ranching of deer and elk contributed to the state Legislature’s move to put game ranching under the jurisdiction of the much less wildlife friendly Idaho Department of Agriculture.

There were 23 game ranches in Idaho when Oldenburg was the state’s big game manager in the 1990s. Now there are more than 80, although Ag Department officials could not confirm the number Wednesday.

“Denial is their tool,” Oldenburg said. “That’s what happens when politics overrules science. The Department of Agriculture denies that CWD and game ranching are connected, even though state after state and Canadian provinces have traced CWD cases back to game farms. It’s been proved over and over.

“A hundred million dollars have been spent trying to test and prevent the spread of chronic wasting disease, and sportsmen are paying most of the bill. A fourth of the Wisconsin DNR budget is being eaten up by CWD programs.

“Yet Idaho continues to be in denial. There’s nothing scientific about denial.”

The Idaho Sportsman’s Caucus Advisory Council, of which Oldenburg is a director, opposes canned hunting operations for the same reasons – to protect wild game and the multibillion dollar Western hunting industry – but also for another reason.

“Going into a fenced shooter-bull operation isn’t hunting,” Oldenburg observed. “It’s not a sport.”

I hope more than a few Idaho hunters agree, even if it means countering a pro football player and the legislators who are tinkering with Idaho heritage.

Winning the Super Bowl would be hollow if the opposing team stood limp at the line of scrimmage and let you run the ball at will.

Soon nobody would give a damn about the Super Bowl.

Even the rich guys would get bored with it.

Quarterbacks and wide receivers could die of weird diseases and nobody would miss them.