Canadian elk farmers are still paying the price for the slaughter of wildlife that occurred when the plains were settled a century ago, says Canadian Venison Council manager Ian Thorleifson.
And politics have been inseparable from elk farming since producers began the first commercial farms, he said.
Elk farmers have had to fight hard to get the industry accepted in Saskatchewan, Alberta and in the eastern provinces, and are only now able to legally raise elk in Manitoba. British Columbia is still closed to elk farming, blocked on high political levels, Thorleifson said.
Read Also
Petition launched over grazing lease controversy
Battle continues between the need for generation of tax revenue from irrigation and the preservation of native grasslands in southern Alberta rural municipality.
The political woes of the elk industry are rooted from when European and white North American settlers almost wiped out the buffalo and other western wildlife, he said. Because of this “horrible, wasteful” slaughter, conservationists like Teddy Roosevelt, who became the president of the United States, campaigned to protect land and wildlife. The public, appalled by the slaughter, supported the conservationists.
“There was a huge pendulum swing against (the unregulated slaughter of wildlife),” Thorleifson said.
The U.S. and Canadian governments jumped in to preserve natural habitat and wildlife. The result was “we ended up with publicly owned wildlife and a real deep down hatred or distrust of commercialization of wildlife in any way.”
Over the decades since, the public has accepted trophy and meat hunting of wildlife, but has been apprehensive about allowing farmers to turn deer and elk into domestic animals.
Thorleifson said he understands why many people hate to see an elk behind a wire fence.
“It’s a symbol of the wilderness. It’s one of the very magic species.”
It isn’t just middle-class city people who object to elk farming, Thorleifson said. Aboriginal entrepreneurs who tried to set up an elk farm faced opposition from band elders on their reserve, who said “it’s wrong to put those animals behind fences and make them just like fenced animals.”
These feelings have seriously cramped the industry across the country and crippled it in some areas.
But Thorleifson said elk farmers who have now been in the business for about 10 years have proved that producers can be responsible, their herds can be well-managed and they can be profitable.
He said elk farming will always face a high level of scrutiny, and producers just have to be ready to deal with elk politics.
“I’ve become more of a politician than a farmer,” said Thorleifson in a recent interview. “I sold all my animals and now I’m a full-time politician.”
