LEDUC, Alta. Ñ Despite low prices and a mass exodus of producers from the industry, Alberta producer Jason Smith thinks there’s a future in the white-tailed deer industry.
The future looks so positive that Smith is planning to give up his oilfield construction company and concentrate on developing the Northern Giants Trophy Ranch he owns in Saskatchewan.
“There’s good money in it,” said Smith, who owns a farm in Eckville, Alta., and a cervid hunt farm near Battleford, Sask., with his business partner, Dean Busat.
Within five years Smith expects visitors to their hunt farm will shoot $1 to $1.5 million worth of animals each year. However, a healthy future is contingent on a healthy hunt farm industry, said Smith, president of the Alberta Whitetail and Mule Deer Association.
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In Canada, white-tailed bucks sold for meat are worth $200 to $600 while bucks on a hunt farm range from $3,000 to $20,000.
In the United States, white-tailed bucks sell for $40,000 to $50,000 and bred does for $20,000.
Even shed antlers can sell for as high as $2,000 in Canada.
“The most sought after game animal in the world is a white-tailed deer for hunting,” said Smith, who hopes one day Alberta will change its rules and allow cervid hunt farms as Saskatchewan does.
“We hope so. I think the educating we’ve been doing to government has been helping.”
He said Alberta agriculture minister Doug Horner has vowed to help the industry access more markets.
“I think he’s going to, in the long term, try and help us develop the industry. The industry in the States is just booming.” Limited access to markets around the world, including the lucrative American market, has forced many producers out of the business. One hundred producers raise about 9,000 deer in Alberta, compared to 200 producers raising 15,000 animals a few years ago.
About 80 percent of the industry’s income comes from selling to hunt farms. Unlike the elk industry, there is virtually no meat or velvet market because of the small size of the animals and their antlers. On the positive side, deer require less feed, less land and smaller fences than elk, Smith said.
Only producers that have enough years of disease-free status are able to sell deer to Saskatchewan hunt farms.
