Canned Hunts

[orchidhunter]

Canned hunting is the killing of an animal in an enclosure, with no chance of escape, in order to obtain a trophy. It is big business in Texas, where some ranchers find the provision of guaranteed kills to hunters willing to pay a premium price to shoot "exotic" animals to be more lucrative than cattle. Whether the "hunt" takes place on a fenced ranch or involves simply shooting into a cage, the target animals have no place to run and no place to hide. Often, the animals are tame and do not know to run from humans. On a typical hunting ranch operation, the animals are fed at a specific time and location. They learn to recognize the sound of the landowner's vehicle as it approaches with food. On the day of a hunt, the owner's vehicle will arrive with hunters instead of food; a kill is thus guaranteed. The price a hunter pays is pre-set for a given trophy animal; if that specific species is not presented as promised, the hunter's money is to be refunded. We have heard of no refunds.




Ranchers usually specialize in the provision of either native species (deer, peccary or javelina, small mammals and birds) or "exotic" species (non-native antelope, deer, boar, sheep, etc.). The animals found on game farms and hunting ranches come from several sources. Some are zoo surplus. Zoo directors must find ways to attract a public and it is well known that baby animals on display sell tickets. In order to make room for new arrivals, older animals are sold as surplus. While AZA-accredited zoos are prohibited from selling directly to hunting ranches, they are permitted to sell to animal dealers, who may then sell to individual collectors, roadside zoos and hunting ranches. The Animal Finder's Guide, a catalog for the underground trade in exotic animals, lists animals from macaques to camels for sale to anyone with cash to buy. It also advertises exotic animal auctions, another prime source of animals for canned hunting operations.

TX Parks and Wildlife, a state agency, sponsors canned hunts on private lands. For a $10 entry fee, a hunter can enter a lottery to participate in a "Big Time Texas Hunt" on a hunting ranch. Offered are opportunities to kill deer, antelope, hogs, alligators and "varmints." TX Parks and Wildlife also receives funding through the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation, created to provide additional monies for the purchase of private ranches for use by TPW for public hunts.

There is no federal law governing canned hunting operations. The Animal Welfare Act does not regulate game preserves, hunting preserves or canned hunts. The Endangered Species Act does not prohibit private ownership of endangered animals and even allows for the hunting of endangered species with the appropriate permit.

Is this sport? Canned hunting is cruel and unfair; the animals haven't got a chance when facing high-tech firearms and archery equipment in a confined space. Write to your Congressional Representative and Senators today and ask them to reintroduce the bill to ban canned hunts. orchidhunter

[wyobohunter]

I'm just not all fired up against it either. Maybe if we had that here and I saw it personally I'd care more. How is this worse than raising cattle or hogs for slaughter with a bolt gun?

I'd feel pretty silly hanging one of those "trophies" on my wall but to each his own.

[hogdogs]

Orchid, What do think the ratio of success is on those texas "canned hunts"? I am not sure if you know this but at 1 sq. mile to acres a 4,000 acre ranch is 6.25 square miles. Just how tame do you think these deer are? A canned hunt is walking down the meat aisle at the local piggly wiggly or other grocery store.
Granted, I understand some places are as small as 300 acres and that may qualify as a "canned" hunt but I know far too many who have come home empty handed to feel it is shooting fish in a barrel.
Brent

[wyobohunter]

I am now not one bit against it. I still wouldn't do it for $$$ reasons, but I wouldn't give anybody else crap for doing it.

[pietskiet]

i am glad it was out lawed in sa a few years back. It is unfair and unsporting!

[bigthrills]

Yeah my aunts friends husband goes to africa and he said they chase the african game into a corner with vehicles and then shot and he calls himself a hunter. the only part i dont agree with is the getting the game used to the sound of the vehicle with food that takes the fun out of it

[orchidhunter]

hogdogs, " What do think the ratio of success is on those texas "canned hunts"? The succes rate on most of the canned hunts is 100%, most are no kill, no pay. orchidhunter

[wyobohunter]

You didn't answer my question. How this more wrong than raising animals for slaughter/sale to market?

[hogdogs]

Actually a few are 100% no slay no pay...
I know many if not most have a fee no matter what and then if you kill, you pay a high price for the critter.
One guy I know of pays near 3-5K if he kills and and over 1,500 if he don't. That is total outlay including fuel and meals to drive etc... No alcohol though as he don't drink.
Brent

[orchidhunter]

wyobohunter, It's the same thing, they are raising animals for slaughter/sale to market. I know a place in East Tn. you can kill a polar bear, if you will pay the price. orchidhunter

[banditt007]

I have no problem with it (though would never partake) provided a few things are adhered to:

-the animals are treated humanely and are given a large space to live, properly care, food, living conditions ect

-the shooter at least has the ability to place his shot correctly and uses a suitable weapon.

I do not believe it is hunting, its just shooting like killing a farm pig. I would never do it even if i could afford it. I would not feel proud of the kill, and don't understand how anyone else could. there was no real hunt, and the animal no matter what size area, technically could never get away from you. I would definitely laugh at someone that told of a 'trophy' they 'hunted' in such a manner. but like i said, if the animals have been treated right, and a high degree of effort is taken to provide a fast clean kill, have at it. but it isn't and i'm sure ever will be, my cup of tea.

[flyboy14]

Can't say that I would do it, but, I don't see a reason to say someone else can't. Where do we draw the line? The hamburger you eat at mc????? gets a pneumatic hammer to the skull, does that make you want to write your congressman? flyboy

[Telgriff]

I don't even see the point in it.

If you cant hunt, then don't. The canned hunt in my eyes is just a zero effort shooting gallery with live animals.

It makes me think of the big tanks (basically an above ground swimming pool) full of fish at the boat shows and so on here. Catch a fish where the density is so high you cant see the bottom of the tank 6 feet below.

[Huey Long]

There is no federal law governing canned hunting operations.

Nor should there be; canned hunting has absolutely nothing to do with interstate commerce.

Those who oppose canned hunting should be directing their arguments to their state legislatures and not to Congress. In fact, many states already ban canned hunting.

[Dr. Strangelove]

If you don't like it, then don't participate in a "canned hunt", but trying to force your opinion on others who may not share your views isn't the way to go. I don't want to go on one (a canned hunt) myself, but why is it any different from walking up to a cow in a field and shooting it? That's not illegal, and if I want to get my steaks and ground beef that way it's better than buying them from the meat-case and pretending it's made in a factory somewhere. It's certainly not hunting, but it's not some sort of criminal activity, either. Shoot the animal humanely and use it for something - dinner, wall mount, whatever.

[freakintoguns]

Orchid, i look at it like this: you dont like it? dont do it. kinda like abortion, or gay marriage, or any of the thousands of other useless things people worry about, besides worrying about there GD selfs.im not a cigarette smoker, but far be it from me to tell people that because i dont smoke they cant either. im not that hiugh and mighty. i fell off that horse around the age of 6

[VaFisher]

Orchid, I am not going to meantion any names but there is a place for this kind of hunt. I went to one of the decent size ranches and they had smaller fenced off area's that had some buffalo, Elk, Black Buck and Hogs. I did not hunt in those area's myself but did see a guy that could hardly breath being driven up by a guide and he did shoot two of the large Buffalo leaning on the truck while being held up by his wife and guide so he would not fall, all this took about 15 min to get this guy in place. This guy's last wish was to go Buffalo hunting and this was the only way he could have done this being he was next to death so his wife purchased for him and drove him there because he could not fly in his condition.
I personally would not get any satisfaction or would I do this type of hunt but glad I saw for myself how some good could come from this type of operation and feel there are more reasons more then likely if we think about it.

[orchidhunter]

Huey Long, Because of the interstate trafficking of exotic animals to supply these canned hunting operations, it is fitting and appropriate for the Congress to crack down on these operations. orchidhunter

[jdscholer]

I've done about the same thing on bird hunt clubs. You go and pay for how many and what kind of birds ya want to have planted; they get them from a pen and put them out while you wait and drink coffee.

When all is in place, you take your dog, kid, camera (create your own scenario) and go "huntin".

No, it is not "real hunting" in my book but it does get the dog on some birds, and he and the kids love it. Success is not 100%, and it hurts to see a 25 dollar rooster disappear into the sunset to become coyote supper. It does have it's place. jd

[Art Eatman]

Some years back, the word got out in Texas about a canned hunt of an aged African lion, with video. The uproar from everybody--with hunters in the forefront--had near-instantaneous, unanimous outlawing of such by the legislature. "Free-ranging" hunting, only, in Texas.

"Guarantee": If you're halfway healthy and a reasonably good shot, I've seen ranches where I could take you out and guarantee you a shot on a decent buck--and I've never claimed to be a hunting guide. A person who lives on a ranch and knows the terrain and the critters' patterns can get a shot for anybody. Same deal for the elk-hunting folks on wide-open federal land in the west.

If you build a stand near a food plot or a feeder, you've pretty much guaranteed yourself a Bambi dinner. The commercial hunting ranches do it for you. But that has nothing to do with a "canned hunt".

So: "Canned hunting is the killing of an animal in an enclosure...It is big business in Texas..."

That is factually incorrect.

"The animals found on game farms and hunting ranches come from several sources. Some are zoo surplus."

Again, not so insofar as zoos and hunted animals. There are exotics, but they are relatively few and are free-ranging insofar as the hunting. Nilghai on the King and Yturria ranches south of Kingsville. Axis deer all over the west-central Hill Country. Blackbuck antelope on several ranches, again, free-ranging.

And now, about 25 Ibex in the east pasture of the O2 Ranch south of Alpine; the pasture is about 100,000 acres. (The west pasture is some 200,000 acres.)

"TX Parks and Wildlife, a state agency, sponsors canned hunts on private lands."

That is an out-and-out lie. There is no other word which can be used.

orchidhunter, I don't know where you ran across this propaganda, but it has nothing to do with hunting in Texas. It's a bunch of irrelevant facts with the words twisted into a propaganda piece. It's the sort of drivel used by anti-hunting people to sucker the ignorant.

Please do yourself a favor and learn something about the subject before passing on agenda-driven lies and twisting of reality into things which just are not so.

Art

[orchidhunter]

The Story of Fred the Pig

Fred was raised as a family pet. He grew up in the Alabama hill country on the farm of Phil and Rhonda Blissitt. Phil had given Fred to his wife for a Christmas present, and he was fed and pampered as a dog or cat would be.

But Fred wasn't a dog or cat. He was a domestic pig, and when he grew up, the Blissitts, whom Fred had learned to think of as his family, sold him to the Lost Creek Plantation, a nearby "hunting preserve".

Fred was longer than nine feet long and weighed half a ton. Since Lost Creek charges $1.25 a pound for what they call (inaccurately, in Fred's case) "feral meat hogs," the operators figured to make more than a thousand dollars on Fred.

They turned him loose in a 150-acre fenced enclosure, from which Fred had no chance of escape. On May 3, they sent paying customers Mike Stone and his 11-year-old son, Jamison, into the enclosure to hunt him down.

A Slow Death

Fred had never been wild, and he had never been hunted. People had always been his friends. They had fed him, rubbed his snout, and brought him treats. When he saw Jamison approaching with a pistol, he may have been curious, but nothing more. Then Jamison shot him.

During the pursuit, Jamison shot Fred a total of eight times. Jamison's father and two guides had high-powered rifles and could apparently have dispatched Fred a number of times during the chase. But they held their fire and let Fred suffer pain and fear for three long hours before Jamison finally succeeded in ending his misery.

Violating Ethics, If Not The Law

This is the true face of canned hunts. A tame animal, trapped inside a fenced pen, is shot multiple times over several hours. The publicity generated by the size of the pig—which might have been a world record had Fred actually been the wild boar he was advertised to be—and some outstanding investigative reporting by Bran Strickland, sports editor of the Anniston Star, lifted the curtain of secrecy in which canned hunts are shrouded and revealed what they really are: cruelty for cash, death for dollars. In Fred's death, as with all the victims of canned hunts, there was neither sport nor sportsmanship.

Last year, Alabama enacted legislation that bans the hunting of tame animals when victim does not have a reasonable chance to escape. Fred was tame, and he had no chance to escape at all. The HSUS asked the Alabama Department of Wildlife and Conservation to investigate what, based on the press reports, appears to be a clear violation of state law. It is certainly a violation of the hunters' code of ethics, fair chase and simple human decency.

Unfortunately, the agency would not act, because Fred was not a game animal—he was a pet. orchidhunter

[grymster2007]

I always imagine one of those pony-ride style carousels and the big bad hunter guy standing 15 feet away with his 375 H&H, gruffly telling his "guide" that no; he's not gonna shoot the blind zebra, he's gonna wait for the three legged tiger to come back around.

[Hirlau]

Quote from freakintoguns:"Orchid, i look at it like this: you dont like it? dont do it. kinda like abortion, or gay marriage, or any of the thousands of other useless things people worry about, besides worrying about there GD selfs"

Easy to stick you head in the sand and not interact with the issues of life!
Easy, that is, until abortion, gay marriage is dropped at your feet by your children; having been indoctrinated/exposed to it at school. What's your answer to them, freakintoguns;"..you don't like it; don't do it"?

They are useless, unimportant issues; until they come knocking at your door.

My on topic question would be; How has canned hunts ( falsely reported or not) effected the participation in hunting itself? How many newcomers have been turned away by this type of activity?

[FrontSight]

Orchid, you site the HSUS??!! Do you even realize they are the equivalent of PETA?? A rabid anti hunting "animal rights" organization, whole ultimate goal is to see all hunting, fishing, horeback riding, meat eating, rodeos, etc ended forver??

Even their name "the human society of the united states" is a lie, as they have no govt afiliation whatsoever.

Careful who you align yourself with; those guys despise us all and want to end what we love most!

[wyobohunter]

That was a saaaad story. I'm going right out to sell my guns and buy a violin. Then of course I'll donat the leftover money to PETA. I think you're looking in the wrong place for support.