Montana governor asks Idaho to ban wild game farms

BOISE – Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer has joined Wyoming’s chief executive in calling on Idaho lawmakers to ban wild game farms and private hunting reserves to protect the health of Yellowstone’s wild elk herds.

“In Montana, we said it’s a bad idea to pen up a bunch of elk, feed them oats and have fat bankers from New York City shoot them while they’ve got their heads in a grain bucket,” Schweitzer said Wednesday during an interview in the Boise offices of the Associated Press.

In Idaho to campaign for Democrats running for governor and Congress, Schweitzer said he wholeheartedly agreed with Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal’s Oct. 5 letter to Idaho Gov. Jim Risch asking him to urge lawmakers to outlaw domestic elk breeding.

“You can quote the Montana governor as saying, ‘Dang tootin,’ ” Schweitzer said. “For people who don’t know, that means the affirmative.”

Risch signed an executive order Sept. 7 calling for the “immediate destruction” of an estimated 160 domesticated elk that escaped in August from the Chief Joseph private hunting reserve operated by veterinarian Rex Rammell near Ashton, not far from the Wyoming border and Yellowstone National Park. The park covers portions of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

While special hunts by state agents and the public had killed 33 of the escaped elk as of Wednesday, Idaho Fish and Game biologists believe the domesticated animals already have crossbred with wild herds.

Elk farming and “shooter bull” hunting operations are banned in Wyoming and Montana. Schweitzer said Idaho should follow suit to protect the three states’ shared resource of Yellowstone’s wild elk herds.

“You’ve got a bad actor who’s not very good at fixing a fence, your state agencies fined him $750,000, and the folks supposed to represent the people of Idaho, your Legislature, said ‘Oh, let’s let him off the hook,’ ” said Schweitzer, referring to a 2002 vote by Idaho lawmakers to forgive fines against Rammell imposed by the Idaho Department of Agriculture for numerous violations. “Now, you’ve got a problem, but it’s our problem too because the Yellowstone Basin is interconnected.”

Leaders of Idaho’s elk farming and hunting reserve industry are challenging the claims by Schweitzer and Freudenthal that banning domestic elk pens would protect the health of wild herds.

“It concerns me these governors come out and say this when they have so much disease in their own wild herds,” said Kent Bagley, a board member of the Idaho Elk Breeders Association who operates the Teton Mountain Ranch elk farm in Victor, near Yellowstone National Park. “Look how many counties in Wyoming have found chronic wasting disease in their wild elk and yet they have no game farms. It’s flawed logic.”

Chronic wasting disease has been detected in elk in southeastern Wyoming, and authorities believe it is spreading in that state’s wildlife population. Some herds of wild elk in Montana have tested positive for brucellosis, a disease that can cause elk – and domestic cows – to abort.

Brucellosis also has been found in wild elk in eastern Idaho, but there has not been a case of chronic wasting disease among wild deer or elk, according to the state Department of Fish and Game.

Bagley said elk breeders plan to lobby Idaho legislators in the 2007 session to reject efforts to outlaw their game farms and private hunting parks. Risch supports a ban, but his term expires before the Legislature convenes in January. The two major party candidates running for Idaho governor, Republican Rep. C.L. “Butch” Otter and Democrat Jerry Brady, have said they would sign legislation prohibiting the domestic elk businesses in Idaho.