Trophy deer industry linked to disease, costs taxpayers millions

"I should much regret to see grow up in this country a system of large private game-preserves kept for the enjoyment of the very rich. One of the chief attractions of the life of the wilderness is its rugged and stalwart democracy; there every man stands for what he actually is and can show himself to be." — Theodore Roosevelt, 1893

It looks like a caricature of a deer, this dainty white-tailed buck whose neck slumps under the weight of the gnarled antlers sprawling from its head.

This is X-Factor, an Indiana deer that in his prime was worth an estimated $1 million.

His value as a stud comes not from research and not from the quality of his venison. Instead, his value is in those freakish antlers, the product of more than three decades of selective breeding.

In less than 40 years, a relatively small group of farmers has created something the world has never seen before — a billion-dollar industry primarily devoted to breeding deer that are trucked to fenced hunting preserves to be shot by patrons willing to pay thousands for the trophies.

An Indianapolis Star investigation has discovered the industry costs taxpayers millions of dollars, compromises long-standing wildlife laws, endangers wild deer and undermines the government's multibillion-dollar effort to protect livestock and the food supply.

To feed the burgeoning captive-deer industry, breeders are shipping an unprecedented number of deer and elk across state lines. With them go the diseases they carry. Captive-deer facilities have spread tuberculosis to cattle and are suspected in the spread of deadly foreign deer lice in the West. More important, The Star's investigation uncovered compelling circumstantial evidence that the industry also has helped accelerate the spread of chronic wasting disease, an always-fatal deer disease similar to mad cow. CWD now has been found in 22 states.

CWD's spread roughly coincides with the captive-deer industry's growth. In half of the states where CWD was found, it first appeared in a commercial deer operation. Officials in Missouri, Nebraska, New York and Canada think captive deer or elk introduced the disease to the wild.

So far, government programs have failed to halt CWD's spread, largely because there is no reliable way to test live animals for the disease. So infected deer may be shipped into disease-free states, where they can infect other animals, captive or wild. The Star's investigation uncovered examples of deer escaping from farms, shoddy record keeping and meager penalties for those caught breaking the rules, which further undermine state and federal efforts to contain the disease. Plus, in less than a decade, more than a dozen people have been charged with smuggling live deer across state lines.

Although CWD's risk to humans is considered minimal, scientists say it's unwise to allow it to spread unchecked. No human is known to have contracted CWD. But scientists and government health officials say the chances of it jumping the species barrier to humans, as they suspect mad cow did, increase as more deer are infected.

In the first comprehensive examination of the growth and associated risks of deer breeding and farming by a major news organization, The Star submitted public records requests to all 50 states and the federal government, reviewed at least 20 studies and conducted more than 100 interviews.

What emerges is a picture of an industry made up of at least 10,000 farms and hunting preserves in the U.S. and Canada, a boutique business that's part livestock and part wildlife and often falls into a regulatory gap between agriculture and natural resource agencies. And, when it comes to hunting deer in fenced preserves, the owners are often free to set their own rules.

The Star investigation found that more than half the states that allow high-fence hunting provide little or no oversight of how deer and elk are killed. So, while the killing of livestock is governed by humane slaughter rules, and the taking of wildlife is governed by hunting laws, anything goes on preserves in most states. The industry counters criticism of this fact by saying the market regulates itself, that hunters naturally eschew unethical behavior.

But The Star investigation found case after case of hunters so obsessed with trophy antlers that they were willing to blur ethical lines. The Star talked with industry insiders and hunters across the country who said the very act of shooting farm-raised deer inside fences shouldn't be called hunting.

The quest for antlers is one driving force. Money is another. Deer farming offers a lucrative business model to small landowners in hard-hit rural areas. So, in some states, they have enjoyed lobbying clout disproportionate to their industry's size and its costs to taxpayers. Many of those with a stake in the industry declare the disease risks a silly doomsday scenario. And their lobbyists and supportive lawmakers are fighting new regulations to slow the spread of disease and ensure fair and ethical hunting rules.

All of this has some wildlife officials now wishing they hadn't allowed hobby farmers to take in deer as pets nearly four decades ago. Now, they say, the growing private market in deer threatens the unique North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, which says deer are a resource held in a public trust for everyone's benefit — and not for profit.

A number of big-game hunting groups, state biologists and wildlife advocates say federal lawmakers should stop the interstate shipment of live deer and enforce ethical standards on hunting preserves. Citing threats to wildlife, several states already have banned the importation of deer. And the threat of bovine tuberculosis has some in the cattle industry and wildlife officials asking questions about whether testing is adequate.

Other questions abound: Does it really make sense to put millions of wild deer and cattle at risk, to increase whatever threat CWD poses to humans, to spend millions culling herds after a disease breaks out and to erode America's egalitarian hunting tradition?

All for antlers? All for trophies? All for the bragging rights and profit of a select few?

Call Star reporter Ryan Sabalow at (317) 444-6179. Follow him on Twitter: @ryansabalow.