Deer Factories - Should these finally be shut down?

[Outdoors Family]

Yet another story of CWD found at a deer farm (see Thundeer Trophy Whitetails in Wisconsin). Can someone tell me why we need these genetic freaks being created so soneone can say they shot a huge fake deer? Now we have seen CWD spread across the U.S. from these farms. New laws have been passed over the last 20 years and CWD testing is now the norm in a lot of places, and deer kills have been orchestrated by the DNR with havest limits being changed and we as hunters are paying the price for it, not only with increased license fees. Why as hunters do we put up with this - to watch a fake setup hunting show? It’s just about money and selling us products…we have to stop this for the future of hunting and the legacy we leave for our kids. We need to stop buying products advertised on shows that support these places, we need to have taxidermists refuse to mount these animals - we need to stop all of this absolute commercial nonsense.

 

[yoderjac]

CWD was certainly spread to new geographic location by deer farms. At this point, it is out of the bottle, and I don't see it being put back in. I think deer farms are similar to any other business. Without proper regulations and oversight, there can be some pretty bad unintended consequences.

Our state did a good job of early prophylactics, including heavier deer farm regulation and oversight as well as banning deer urine and feeding deer through most of the year. Unfortunately, we got it from a neighboring state and it is slowly moving out from there.

As for the genetic manipulation, as long as we, as a hunting community, determine success by the size of antlers, there will be a market for this kind of activity. I, for one, have started mounting jawbones as trophies. To me, the ability to fool a mature buck, regardless of antler size, is more a measure of skill. Having said that, those trophies are simply mementos of hunts from the past. My measure of success now lies in enjoying the outdoors, harvest or not, and introducing a new generation into hunting.