Boise News

nose to nose with Idaho elk ranching

Chronic Problems on Elk Ranches

By Nathaniel Hoffman, 2-07-07

Chronic problems with fencing allows wild deer and elk to mingle with domesticated animals as in this picture taken by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

From Wild Idaho News.

Idaho hunters who like their elk wild have wrangled with elk farmers and their allies in agriculture for more than 15 years.

While elk breeders here have largely kept their animals free of disease up to now, sportsmen and those charged with protecting wild herds fear that a disease outbreak among domesticated elk is inevitable and could debilitate the state’s wildlife populations.

The stalemate came to a head this fall when up to 160 elk escaped from a large game farm north of Driggs. Now the Legislature is poised to hear a slew of bills, ranging from an outright ban on fenced elk hunts to a licensure system for game farms developed by a game farm industry group.

Extensive records obtained by the Wild Idaho News show that on five East Idaho ranches where customers are invited to shoot domesticated bulls for large fees, ranch managers have chronic problems containing their animals and keeping wild elk outside their fences.

Since it opened in the fall of 2003, the Pine Mountain Hunting Ranch, east of Idaho Falls has regularly had wild deer, elk and moose inside its fence line, according to Idaho Department of Fish and Game records. At least three domestic bull elk escaped during the winter of 2003, likely mingling with wild game for months, records show.

IDFG records show that four other game farms in East Idaho have had wild ungulates inside the fences within the last year.

“By the nature of these operations it’s extremely difficult to prevent these problems from occurring,” said Mark Gamblin, regional director of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s (IDFG) Pocatello office.

“It’s very, very difficult to build an elk-proof fence.”

Elk farmers say their animals rarely get out, and if they escape, it is only for a short time. They also say their elk do not pose a genetic or disease risk to the wild herds, the thing that big game managers and sportsmen fear most.

“I can manage these animals in a private setting 1,000 times better than Fish and Game can manage the wild animals,” said Gary Queen, a North Idaho elk farmer who recently resigned as head of the Idaho Elk Breeders Association (IEBA), citing his health.

The Idaho State Department of Agriculture (ISDA) reports that 221 domestic elk have escaped since about the time it assumed oversight for elk ranching in the state in 1994.

Of the escaped animals, 192 were eventually recaptured, the majority fairly quickly.

Twenty-five were never located.

It is not a violation of Idaho code if an animal escapes, but the owner is required to report the escape to the ISDA within 24 hours.

“There haven’t been that many violations of the rules,” said John Chatburn, deputy administrator of Animal Industries at ISDA.

Chatburn estimates that the ISDA has issued several notices of violation to domestic cervidae ranchers over the years, the majority of them going to
Rex Rammell, the East Idaho veterinarian whose elk escaped last fall.

Until 1994, the IDFG was responsible for managing elk farms. Retired IDFG wildlife manager Lloyd Oldenburg, who testified at the 1994 hearing that wrested control from his agency, said the elk industry requested that the ISDA take over and that elk be treated like livestock so that oversight would be less stringent.

Elk breeders say they sought ISDA oversight in the 1990s because they thought IDFG was not equipped to deal with livestock diseases, Queen said.
“It’s the Department of Agriculture’s charge to make sure that disease is not transmitted by any way, shape or form to domestic livestock,” Queen said.

Bob Hillman, who was state veterinarian at the time of the change, agrees that ISDA was better equipped to handle the elk operations.
“There was an effort by the cervidae industry to move the regulation of elk farming to the Department of Agriculture” he said in an interview.

But since 1994, elk breeders have successfully lobbied to change the law to the point where the ISDA cannot even issue permits for their operations, is barred from handing out significant fines and relies largely on the operators themselves to track domesticated elk held in the state.

“The people who are doing this to make money set it up to function just the way it is functioning, which is not in the best interest of the state,” said recently retired IDFG director Steve Huffaker.

Though it does not have any authority over the elk ranchers, IDFG does monitor wild game that is caught behind the fences or gets over, under or through the fences.

Before Steve McGrath opened his Pine Mountain Ranch in August 2003, more than 30 people including IDFG and ISDA personnel and ranch workers spent two days flushing wildlife out of the pens, according to an extensive record of IDFG contact with the ranch obtained by the Wild Idaho News through a public records request.

When high-fence domestic hunts commenced on the ranch later that month, IDFG officials believed there were still several deer and a moose inside. The ranch arranged for a youth hunt targeting five to 10 antlerless deer inside the fence and sought out moose tag holders to stalk two wild moose.
McGrath could not be reached for comment on this story. A secretary at his law firm said he was out of town.

IDFG had determined that wild game that comes into contact with domestic cervidae should not be released into the wild again to prevent the spread of disease. But as the agency debated its options that fall, Huffaker did not want that policy to be an excuse for the elk ranchers.

“We’re not really going to get into the mode of killing the wildlife inside farmers fences so it’s safe for them to stock domestic elk are we?” Huffaker asked in an email to IDFG administrators.

The next spring, IDFG and ISDA tranquilized one of Pine Mountain’s bulls near Idaho Falls, one of three domesticated elk that went missing during the winter. Another Pine Mountain bull was killed in Unit 69 during hunting season and the third was spotted and killed south of Idaho Falls, more than a year after it escaped,.

In the fall of 2004, an ISDA vet told IDFG that 24 mule deer had overwintered the year prior at Pine Mountain and IDFG issued kill permits to ranch staff for the deer.

In 2005, ranch manager Gary Kelly told IDFG that five moose, more than 30 deer and a wild elk were inside the pens. He also said he saw 21 deer run over the fence earlier in the year, according to IDFG records.

In May 2006 a helicopter pilot spotted moose tracks running right over the Pine Mountain fence and in October two more of the domestic elk escaped and were subsequently shot.

In early 2006 IDFG documented the presence of wild elk, deer and moose on Mike Ferguson’s Squirrel and Meadow creek ranches, on Rammell’s former ranch and in state Sen. Jeff Siddoway’s Juniper Mountain elk pen. IDFG believes that Rulon Jones, who opened an elk ranch last year in the Blackfoot Mountains, had wildlife on his property when he populated it with domestic elk.

McGrath has cooperated with IDFG to take care of wild game inside his fence over several seasons, former director Huffaker said. And ISDA has, for the most part, followed its procedures.

But it is not enough, Huffaker says.

“The system is flawed, the approval process is flawed.”

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