Just when you thought things couldn’t get any goofier, it looks like Alberta’s United Conservative Government is about to succumb to a long-standing lobby by financially hard-pressed game farmers to allow trophy hunters to shoot elk on “harvest preserves,” which amounts to shooting them in a barrel, writes Professional Biologist and author Lorne Fitch, an occasional contributor to this blog. This is unethical, potentially dangerous, and bound to tarnish the image of responsible hunters, he warns. Real hunters should be appalled, and need to speak up to stop this terrible idea, he argues. DJC
By Lorne Fitch
Turning game farms into places to kill trophy elk for a price has been strenuously lobbied for by the Alberta Elk Commission and it seems the government of Alberta is poised to make it so with legislative amendments in 2025.
Apparently the United Conservative Party brain trust, guided by the present minister of Agriculture, sees nothing wrong with the idea of turning game farms into hunt farms.
After all, they’ve given us the spectre of mountaintop coal mining, draining prairie rivers dry for irrigation, ratcheting up logging to unsustainable levels, and slamming the door on renewable energy projects in favour of more greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuel extraction. It’s all about the money, not good public policy. And it promises long term pain for short term gain.
Elk farming is one of those get-rich-quick schemes first promoted by the government of Alberta. Except that it didn’t turn out as planned for most and now it’s a failing industry clawing at anything to stay afloat. It’s unfortunate that many were sucked into the economic hype of game farming.
Greenwashing the concept of a hunt farm by spinning it as a “cervid harvest preserve” paints a picture of an industry so bereft of ethics it almost takes your breath away! This is not hunting or “harvest.” It’s shooting a captive animal enclosed in a “preserve” with an escape-proof fence and none of the classic rules of fair chase.
And it’s is an enterprise that’s all about the money. In a 2023 Western Producer article, an elk farmer was quoted asking the then minister of Agriculture if he understood what these “hunt preserves” could do for Alberta and touting the economic potential of enticing hunters to travel to Alberta to shoot trophy elk.
The Alberta Elk Commission, founded in 1988 as the Alberta Game Growers Association, says producers receive $1,500 to $2,200 an elk when it’s sold for meat, but that elk sold to hunt farms can fetch $4,000 to $10,000, or more, depending on antler size and hunt farm clientele.
The issue is that to get top dollar for the animals, Alberta elk farmers currently must send their male elk with large antlers, which are prized by trophy hunters, to hunt farms in Saskatchewan or the United States. If other jurisdictions have hunt farms, these farmers ask, why can’t Alberta?
For an answer, remember what your mother used to tell you about your friends’ dumb ideas: “If they want to jump off a bridge, that doesn’t mean you should too!”
Hunters should be appalled by this plan because there will be blowback from the public. It has the very real potential to tarnish ethical, responsible hunters with the image of blood-thirsty, rapacious gunners.
Allowing the shooting of captive animals is ethically flawed, and has the potential to negatively influence the perception and legitimacy of hunting on the part of the non-hunting public.
It debases the sport of hunting, in which a combination of skill, observation, time and luck are necessary for success. Stepping into a fenced enclosure involves little or none of that. It degrades hunting to the denominator of a price tag. Commercializing wildlife, even farmed wildlife, creates a slippery slope legally, ethically and perceptually.
There may also be serious biological consequences an order of magnitude greater than the ethical ones. A technical review of hunt farms by The Wildlife Society, an international association of wildlife scientists, provides a summary of biological issues. At the top of the list is chronic wasting disease.
Every informed hunter and conservationist knows the toll CWD has exacted on wildlife populations in Alberta. The disease is transmissible and is caused by prions that remain infectious for years and for all practical purposes cannot be destroyed. The disease is considered 100 per cent fatal once clinical signs develop.
A Pandora’s box of wildlife diseases wasn’t wrenched open by divine intervention, it happened through game farms, as wildlife experts correctly predicted.
In those jurisdictions where hunting of farmed wildlife exists, diseases — especially CWD —have been shown to be nearly impossible to control or eliminate. No thought of that appears to have been considered in this ill-advised scheme for Alberta. Ignored are the issues arising from a quick buck syndrome, especially the costs not accounted for in this effort to make game farms profitable.
It’s easy to see what the next steps might be. Some game farms may not be big enough to offer a “challenging” and “sporting” experience. Why not include some adjacent public land, fence it in too, and expand the operation to be more profitable? After all, such schemes do have a way of moving from the illogical to the absurd.
Past governments created this problem—the solutions must lie with current ones.
Ignoring the issue, hoping problems will go away and kicking the can down the road are not solutions, nor is a knee-jerk response of permitting the killing of trophy animals on fenced-in farms. All of these treat symptoms, not the fact game farms were a bad idea that has only gotten worse with time.
It comes down to a simple question: Does the desperation of a small group of game farm owners justify continuing the risks from their operations, including shooting trophy animals in a fenced area?
Does the plight of a failed industry mean the hunting community and wildlife enthusiasts in general have to roll over and play dead?
If Albertans, especially hunters and the conservation community, don’t stand up, this will slide through with all the ease of inserting a credit card and opening a gate to the unearned bragging rights for shooting a trophy bull elk in a barrel.
Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist and a former Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary. He is the author of Streams of Consequence and Travels Up the Creek: A Biologist’s Search For a Paddle.
The UCP’s only concern is whatever gives them a quick buck.
We’re nothing but Montana north, where elk hunts are in stock, add to cart, $7500 US.
DJC— on an unrelated topic, but still under the realm of “just when you think things couldn’t get any goofier ”
—————‐———-‐——-‐————–
The Breakdown : Episode 6.63
The Sky-box Network Exposed
——–‐—————————————
It took me about 45 minutes to get through the video (time outs to try and absorb all the information) and left with a headache from the eye rolls, and a feeling of dread and disgust that I can’t even begin to put into words.
I may have to join my fellow rutabagas out in the root cellar, along with the “ugly rejected potatoes ” hoping to make it until spring……..SIGH!!!
Another problem that could result if this goes through is that if it causes hunt farms to become really profitable, we could see more of these types of farms spring up.
Correct me if I’m mistaken, but is this not the same industry that was told putting large groups of elk together would inevitably result in chronic wasting disease running through the herds? When it did a few years after these game farms were established and the owners were initially denied compensation, they threatened to release the infected animals into wild populations? Why should we expect that they would suddenly become ethical operators? This is why I’ve never eaten elk meat in Alberta, voting with my dollars.
Almost all cases of cwd in domestic elk occur in areas where cwd is already prominent in the wild and is in fact spreading from the wild into the domestic herds. The rare cases where it has occurred in herds outside these zones it was found to have come in from the feed when cfia did their epidemiological investigation. Also just a FYI 100% of any farmed cervids in alberta that die have their heads tested for cwd and no meat is released into the food chain until test results are back
Seeing that you work for the Alberta Elk Commission, you would be able to provide the data to support your specious claims. So please feel free to do so now.
I do find it rather damning that you don’t deny your industry threatened to expose the wild elk population to CWD by releasing your members diseased animals into the wild. Might have been better to have headed the warnings of the wildlife biologists raising the alarm, long before your industry proceeded to make their predictions a reality.
Should this travesty come to pass, will these cervid harvest preserves require patrons to indemnify them against CWD induced Cruzfeldt Jakob Disease lawsuits?
And in the interest of full disclosure, I am gun owner and I have been a big game hunter. One of the reasons I stopped hunting was CWD. First deer (both species), then elk, and finally, even moose. I won’t be surprised when the disease spreads to caribou and antelope. Nor when it starts showing up in the predators – which includes our species.
I understand your concern but there is always the option of having your animal tested before consuming the meat. All domestic cervids are 100 percent tested and have been for decades.
The testing is voluntary (though highly recommended) for hunter harvested & processed meat. The worry I have is poor handling of cervid neurological tissue causing cross contamination.
For example, and this from my own hunting experience, field quartering an animal means you are cutting the spinal cord longitudinally and laterally. If the animal was infected, but not symptomatic, your butchering tools just became a prion transmission vector.
I don’t know what the commercial processing regulations are. That’s even more of a concern. I hope the hunter has to provide proof of negative CWD before a commercial butcher even accepts the meat.
Legitimate concerns. The elk industry is heavily regulated with a ton of safeguards in place but when it comes to wild game and hunting involving cwd, its a free for all. Yes they have testing in certain areas but it’s only to monitor the spread of the disease in the wild population. This is probably because CWD is not considered a reportable disease by the WHO so the concern for human consumption is limited.
Those Elk don’t have a chance and for once this is not about Edmonton’s struggling football team. Going after fenced in Elk is like shooting fish in a barrel, is not sporting and shouldn’t really be called hunting either.
It is possible this is just a case of the UCP seeing what is happening in other jurisdictions it likes to copy and just blindly following them. But I wonder if there is more to it than that. It would be interesting to follow the money here and see what happens. For instance, who is well connected to the UCP and owns an Elk farm or has purchased one. I don’t feel that odd things like this generally just happen randomly.
However, the UCP may feel fairly safe in that what is left of the mainstream media in Alberta likely neither has the interest or resources to look into this further.
Fitch: “[Allowing the shooting of captive animals] debases the sport of hunting, in which a combination of skill, observation, time and luck are necessary for success. Stepping into a fenced enclosure involves little or none of that. It degrades hunting to the denominator of a price tag. Commercializing wildlife, even farmed wildlife, creates a slippery slope legally, ethically and perceptually.”
Hunting is not a sport. The two sides are not remotely equal. The game is not remotely fair.
For one thing, the prey may not even know that it is being hunted.
If you want a fair fight, give the bears guns.
Hunters and fishermen are armed with the latest gear and technologies to increase their advantage. Spotting scopes, fish finders using sonar, high-powered rifles so they can shoot from a safe distance.
Optics, range finding, handheld ballistic calculators, long range rifles, trail cameras, communication devices, hunting apps, night vision technologies, ATV’s, ultra-lightweight hunting gear, camouflage, navigation equipment, etc.
What chance does wildlife have?
Commodification of wildlife — under the category of “natural resources” for human use — is the cardinal sin. Commercializing wildlife is but the next logical step.
Assinie, stupid, insipient, fatuous, addlepated, muffin-brained, etc.. Texas will be proud though!!!! Real hunters, not so much!! There will be so much to repeal after next election.
“…touting the economic potential of enticing hunters travel to Alberta…
Missing a preposition in there, I think.
This is of a piece with the UCP’s recent proposal to sic hunters on “problem grizzly bears” (https://albertapolitics.ca/2024/07/alberta-launches-grizzly-bear-hunt-government-says-its-not-a-bear-hunt-government-also-says/) – no, actually, it’s worse, it’s indulging those who want to kill animals for the sake of killing them.
Thanks, Lorne, for bringing this to our attention.
Most Outfitters are in favor of harvest preserves and very few of the clientele would overlap. There are many hunters who are not in the physical condition needed to go on a guided hunt for elk and as a part time guid I have born witness to this on more then one occasion. Harvest preserves provide a service that thousands of people across North America take advantage of and for some its the last chance to hunt the animal we are all so passionate about.
“many hunters who are not in the physical condition needed to go on a guided hunt”
Really. I thought this was an outdoor man’s *sport*, & that fitness was just one of the benefits. I think you’ve shot yourself in the foot with this one.
How so. Big difference between walking 10-20 miles a day on a guided hunt and what you would do an a harvest preserve yes but with a harvest preserve you could adjust the amount of walking to fit the client’s abilities. Second maybe come hunt wmu 359 and check out all the road warriors and tell me how many of them are in good shape and actually walking any. I would say over 50% of alberta hunters are road warriors that never leave there pickup or atvs.
This is sickening. If the UCP had any shame whatsoever they would denounce this as loudly as possible. Instead, they will promote the hell out of it so a few insiders can fill their pockets. An absolute disgrace.
Hello Lorne Fitch, DJC, and fellow commenters,
I agree with all the points that Lorne has made, and have always thought that game farming was a dangerous idea. In addition to what Lorne has written, won’t this possibility also damage the viability of guiding businesses that take more ethical hunters on trips to seek wild game.
Another point that I have read is that hunting the animals with the best physical traits could damage the general population when these animals with beneficial genes are removed from the population. Is that an accurate hypothesis?
Thanks for your guest column, Lorne.
“… hunting the animals with the best physical traits could damage the general population when these animals with beneficial genes are removed from the population. Is that an accurate hypothesis?”
It’s been shown to affect horn size in Alberta bighorns – https://thegatewayonline.ca/2016/01/alberta-bighorn-sheep-horns-slowly-shrinking/
It’s also affected tusk size in heavily-poached African elephant populations – https://www.npr.org/2021/10/22/1048336907/elephants-tuskless-ivory-poaching-africa
Evolutionary biologists are quite familiar with this phenomenon and use such cases as good examples of natural selection in action.
Very interesting, thank you. My guess is that the owners of these elk farms don’t get the majority of their income from the farm. A quick look at wikipedia indicates that the majority of these farms have vanished, gone bankrupt, been converted to other farming, or something else.
One plausible reason to continue to hang onto a money losing venture is it’s a side gig owned by a wealthy UCP donor and the giant ego of the owner can’t bear to admit the venture was a total failure.
But how to salvage the loser while sticking it Albertans and getting sane ethical people to express dismay?
Convert it to a US style hunt farm, where rich trophy hunters can pretend they’re big game hunters from the 1800’s when trophy hunting was socially acceptable.
The elk farm owners will get a government bailout, the owner’s giant, yet fragile ego will be salvaged and the trophy hunters will get to to act out their sociopathic fantasies while killing an animal that has no chance.
I’m sorry, but the UCP is Trump MAGA junior. So is the federal Conservative Party.
We need to make sure we all pay attention.
Do the homework and vote in every election, no matter how inconsequential that election may seem to you.
And support the party and candidates that can defeat this movement in any way you can.
I’m appalled that there has been no comments on this one from your usual audience David. What kind of brutes think raising animals to be fenced in and then shot for entertainment is acceptable to the point that they have nothing to say about it? The rumours about Albertan’s seem to be more and more true.
Debrah: To be fair, I think there have been several from my usual commenters. DJC
I think I have to apologize for my angry outburst about no comments on this awful story about abusing animals. For some reason when I scrolled down at the end of the article, my screen fast forwarded right past the other comments. I’m so glad that I saw them because I was feeling completely hopeless about the humanity in the province. So my apologies folks and I promise to be less quick on the trigger.
First of this is a great opinion piece article. However you would think that someone who throws the title of biologists around would actually have some scientific data to back up his wild and far out opinions especially when attacking people’s livelihood. There is scientific data to discredit every wild claim made in this article and obviously no research was done.
You would also think that someone whose family owns an elk farm, who is a hunting guide and who is with the Alberta Elk Commission would disclose their bias and that they would personally profit from this government action, wouldn’t you Logan? Enjoy the bailout.
How is it a bail out? We aren’t asking for a dime from the government. Would it give me more marketing options yes but it wouldn’t make me any more money. It will however create jobs and bring in tourism to the province. Also if our industry wasn’t being attacked with 0 science to back up the claims I wouldn’t have to spend my time squashing the misinformation being spread.
I would be very surprised if you could find one connection between the ucp and a elk ranch. I know a lot of elk ranchers and they are family farms and for the most part just want to be treated equally to the other livestock farms in the province.
Logan– small bone to pick with you ( no pun intended)
When “regular farmers ” were having to sell off their cattle because of the drought and lack of feed, the government wasn’t instituting programs for people to start coming in and “hunting” those cattle so that the farmers could make a profit.
So some major miss information in this article. The author wants to paint a picture of a industry financially failing in need of government help due to financial difficulties. This is far from the truth though as financially the elk industry is doing good. As for your comparison I would say it is off base. For one my family runs a large cattle operation and did have to downsize some but I also know there was lots of government drought relief to all farmers. The elk producers were actually shafted a little because our farm business plans are run slightly different then say a strictly cow calf beef operation so we didn’t receive any compensation for our male animals. Also the government did help out cattle producers w with regulation changes during covid. When packing plants were shut down and it was tough for beef producers to get animals marketed the government changed the on farm slaughter rules so producers could direct market there animals privately. Lastly these animals are already being harvested on harvest preserves so it’s not like we are asking for something new. We are just asking to do it in alberta rather then relying on crossing borders that could be closed to us without a moments notice.
Are you the Logen Dolen quoted in the 2023 Western Producer article?
Logan Dolen – I have not met, or heard of a cattle (sheep, pig, goat or other animal) farmer, who wants to allow hunting of their cattle etc, so not allowing hunting on Elk farms seems to be treating them equally.
They actually all do on farm slaughter and as far as the harvest preserves the bison and wild pigs already do it. Also what would you call the pheasant hunting in alberta? All domestic released to be hunted.
Definitely some truth to that and farmed elk are the proof. Through selective breeding domestic elk now can produce way larger antlers then they did 20 years ago. Since the animals stocking these harvest preserves would be domestic not taken from the wild population it would have 0 effect on wild genetics
Logan– you just exposed your priorities…
“domestic elk now can produce way larger antlers than they did 20 yrs ago”
— not more meat, not for taste, not less fat; just for ” lookie dur boys, sees the rack on dat un”.
The type of “hunters” we were warned about in our bow-hunting courses. They are only out for ‘trophy bucks’ , and I’ve seen myself the wasted meat left behind while they left with those REALLY big antlers.
So coming from someone who does enjoy venison and did actual hunting- out in the wild, IMPO , your advocating sounds too much like a sales pitch.
And when you say that these ‘hunters’ have the–option– to have the meat tested, that says to me LOOPHOLE….plausible deniability.
Better hope none of expensive 10 galloners get sick; if they can afford to shell out 5 to 10k on sport hunting, they have even more to shell out on lawyers.
Just saying!!
Elk meat already is number 1 in fat and protein content and taste so there is no need to improve on that. How is having every animal tested to prove the meat is safe for consumption a loophole? Also any hunter who wastes meat is not a hunter and is fact a poacher and should be treated as such.
I don’t hunt. It’s not my jam. But I don’t look down at hunting or hunters. I don’t like cricket either, but that doesn’t mean I think there’s anything inherently wrong or immoral with cricket.
But shooting a penned animal in an enclosure, or some other form of “game farm”, isn’t “hunting”. It’s slaughter, pure and simple. They might as well just send those magnificent animals to an abattoir, like beef cattle. There may be an ethical argument that there’s no fundamental difference between this kind of thing and the slaughter of livestock for meat, but to me it’s just wrong. At least agricultural slaughter is (presumably) undertaken in a humane manner that ensures the food safety of the carcass.
Jerry: Having toured three slaughterhouses (two beef, one sheep) I would say there is nothing humane about the way animals are slaughtered for those of us at the top of the food chain. It’s unpleasant, and it may indicate a character flaw, but it wasn’t enough to make a vegetarian of me. As for whether they ensure food safety, I am not so certain of that either, but at least they inspected from time to time for that purpose, by supposedly disinterested inspectors. Again, the risk has not yet been enough to put me off my feed. As for your comments about cricket, I am deeply shocked. How can one not be enthusiastic about a game that really does include a position called a silly mid-off and, at least back in the day, both teams wore the same uniform? DJC
On farm slaughter or slaughter on a harvest preserves would be much less stress on the animal then hauling them to an abattior.
Texas North
Montana North
Its not like one could say Alberta has picked up “good/decent” American habits/policies. It will be interesting to see how those Albertans will like the American health care system once it takes root in Alberta. Can hardly wait to see what they will do once they train their sights on women’s health care.
It will also be ever so interesting to see animal rights activists protesting against the abuse of elk. It will be amusing to see all those ads in magazines asking hunters to not go to Alberta and other ads asking all foreign tourists to not go to Alberta.
These people who got into elk farming to make money are what one could refer to as “free enterprisers”. They love being able to have their own businesses and wax on about how hard they work for their money and others should get off their asses and do as they have done, work hard. What those people are is just opportunists and when things don’t work out they want the government to bail them out, either by changing rules or giving them tax payer dollars. In this case there could be a huge impact on wild life, that disease has no easy fix and will be devastating. Boys and girls who got into the elk business to make money, you need to grow up and wean yourselves off of the government train. Those tax payer dollars need to be used for kids, seniors, health care, education, housing, you get the drift. Tax dollars ought not to be used to bail out ill planned get rich schemes.
Asking for legislative changes does not take money from any tax dollars. Also most people in the elk industry have been in it for 20 plus years or are 2nd or 3rd generation farmers so explain to me how that is a ger rich quick scheme. Anyone who is left is in it is because of our love for these animals. Also if you are so anti capitalism what do you do for a living?
Something that was not brought up in Mr. Fitch’s post – the history of CWD.
Here is the synopsis:
In the mid 70’s, the Colorado Dept. of Agriculture had a research farm, where they fed cervids (white tail deer) meal made from scrapie infected sheep (scrapie is a prion disease in sheep).
Some deer escaped. CWD then began spreading in wild deer, and has slowly been spreading across North America since then.
Look it up. The 1st page of a Google search is replete with reputable results.
Key to that is research and not a common farm. I was under the impression that they were just researching scrapies at the facility and it jumped to the deer through naturally shed prions. If what you state is true someone errored gravely that’s for sure but it was a scientist nor a farmer
For starters it’s a commission hence a non profit organization created to give the industry a voice with government and I don’t work for them. All members are elected industry representatives. 2nd to my knowledge no producers have made the threat that you claim but I can’t say that it was never said because I don’t know every producer and every word they have ever said. 3rd when would this threat even of been made? Up until a few years ago there was only 1 case of cwd in domestic cervids in Alberta and thats with 100% head testing. However as it spreads across the province in the wild population it has been infiltrating its way into the domestic population through feed and other means although most epidemiological investigations done by cfia point to feed contaminated by wild cervid feces. Also not 1 domestic cervid has died from cwd and every positive came from healthy animals sent for slaughter with 99 percent of the heard testing negative when sorce heard was destroyed. And yes a cwd positive means the complete destruction of a farmers life work and is utterly devastating for anyone who has to go through that. I am not sure if you are a farmer and can fantom what that would be like but I can assure you it’s not pleasant.
Find these game farms a lot better than the government letting the elk run around on land owners land by the hundred, grazing, dine and dashing destroying the fences, upon doing so .Upon doing so, Refusing payment or compensation in these areas.
Appearing government incomes in Billions off of the wildlife industry, hunting & equipment and Tags, Etc. This Cypress hill area issues dealing with back dates to 1950,s continuely have avoided .
.
I generally don’t agree with the UCP on most things. However, people who have a problem with this game farm idea maybe need to take a good hard look in the mirror, and think about where they get their t-bone steaks and chicken breasts. I’d guess most of these animals live (and die) a lot worse than the elk that people are concerned about here. Not saying either practice is ethical or “right” but criticizing one thing while saying nothing about the other feels disingenuous and hypocritical to me. Especially when a large number of those opposed probably regularly partake of factory-farmed meats without a second thought.