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Monday, January 07, 2008
Ind. Gov't. - Canned hunting in news again
This ILB entry from Oct. 18, 2007, headed "DNR ends talks, to press courts for ‘canned hunting' ban", gives the details on how we got to where we are now.
Today Grace Schneider of the Louisville Courier Journal has a long report, complete with photos and a related video. She writes in part:
"This is as real as it gets," Bruce, 39, said recently as he stood in a 5-by-8-foot plywood tree stand, watching for passing deer. "If there was anything wrong with it, I wouldn't do it."But Indiana wildlife officials see plenty wrong with it. And they're trying to shut down Whitetail Bluff and nine other fenced hunting preserves across the state.
In Kentucky, game officials have condemned similar preserves and the game-breeding operations that supply them.
A 2006 state law banned importing live deer and elk, a measure expected to severely undercut Kentucky's roughly 80 hunting and "alternative livestock" farms.
Some 15 states have banned such hunting, while the Humane Society of the United States and other animal-rights groups press for more restrictions. Critics say the hunts are unethical.
"Ultimately, the animal is not going to be able to escape the hunter," said Anne Sterling, Indiana director for the national Humane Society.
Also, she said, "deer are acclimated to humans (inside preserves). They're used to coming to set locations to feed. It's just not your typical hunting."
Even some traditional sportsmen's groups think enclosed operations run counter to principles of "fair chase."
Game biologists, meantime, fear the preserves could complicate a growing problem with deer wasting disease and other biological threats.
Confined animals can more readily share illnesses and then spread them when fences break and animals intermingle.
Whether Indiana's preserves survive could be decided in Harrison Circuit Court, where Bruce filed a lawsuit two years ago challenging an emergency Indiana Department of Natural Resources rule that banned fenced hunting.
The rule was set after a federal criminal case arose in Peru, Ind., where landowner Russ Bellar was accused of allowing clients -- including celebrity entertainers and race-car drivers -- to shoot at animals drawn to bait piles and trapped in pens.
Bruce, who until recently worked at a factory job, said the federal case didn't help businesses like his, which he describes as reputable.
But he says the state ban -- and former natural resources director Kyle Hupfer's declaration that Indiana never intended to allow fenced hunting -- is a stunning policy reversal.
He has letters showing the agency approved his business plans in 1999 and told him he'd need a game-breeder's license, although the state also cautioned that Whitetail Bluff's long-term prospects weren't assured because laws could change. * * *
In the spring of 2006, Harrison Circuit Judge H. Lloyd "Tad" Whitis issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the state from attempting to enforce the fenced hunting ban, and the parties indicated that they would try to reach a settlement.
By last spring, most of the terms to cover all the Hoosier preserves had been negotiated.
The deal would have allowed the businesses to continue operating for 10 years, then cease restocking for two final years before the fences were cut down and the preserves closed.
That seemed like a good compromise to Bruce, who had arranged a $200,000 bank loan to get started and needs the fees from hunters to repay it.
But then the state backed away from the deal and announced that it would fight Bruce's lawsuit. Hupfer said a state agency can't sign an agreement not to enforce one of its own rules. * * *
A hearing on Bruce's case is expected sometime this month.
Moyer has argued that the state made a deal and now should be forced to carry it out.
The state, which hired an Indianapolis law firm to handle the litigation, has asked Whitis to dismiss Bruce's motion to enforce the settlement terms.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 7, 2008 01:32 PM
Posted to Indiana Government