Elk on hunt farms have as good or better lives than other livestock, says a veterinarian who specializes in cervid work.
“The hunt farm industry shouldn’t be singled out as an inhumane thing,” said Murray Woodbury of the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare, supported by two Saskatchewan groups, has run a radio advertising campaign attacking hunt farms. One ad paints a picture of a rich American hunter shooting a domestic elk that has no fair chance of escape.
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Woodbury said some people don’t like hunting, but animals on hunt farms face no greater risks to their welfare than do wild animals that are hunted.
“In a fair chase situation, it really doesn’t matter if there’s a perimeter fence holding the animal on a section.”
The hunt farm elk will probably have lives as good as elk on traditional farms, he added. It’s in the owner’s interest to have his animals in excellent condition, since that is what well-heeled hunters are paying to shoot.
Woodbury said he thinks the attack on hunt farms comes from the perception that animals are penned in tiny enclosures where they have no chance to hide.
But he said Saskatchewan operations, of which there are more than a dozen, don’t tend to be that way. They enclose large areas of land where there is ample room for animals to avoid hunters.
Sitting ducks
Farms don’t tend to feed-bait, in which animals are trained to visit certain locations at certain times because of feed regularly placed there for them, Woodbury said.
“If there’s no bait situation, if the animal doesn’t want to be seen you won’t find him.”
Woodbury said there are hunt farms that use baiting and some that keep animals in small pens, which don’t allow a fair chase.
“That’s not hunting.”
Critics of hunt farms, such as the IFAW and the Regina Humane Society, say they consider farmed elk to be domestic animals. The elk won’t try to avoid human hunters because they are used to being handled. And they think it’s wrong to shoot domestic animals for sport.
But Woodbury thinks many critics’ concerns will fade as small operations are eliminated and larger, more open hunt farms are developed. Then people will see that the animals have good lives and can avoid being shot.
“Those operators on tiny bits of land won’t stay in business because the hunters won’t support it.”
