PAWELEKVILLE — Dr. Gery Moczygemba began raising whitetail deer almost by accident in 1988 when a cash-strapped patient needing an emergency root canal paid the Seguin dentist with five orphan fawns.

A decade later, when his buck Paco grew an enormous, clean rack, things were changing.

“When the Texas Deer Association started in 1999, we had the biggest deer in the state of Texas. That was Paco. And that’s when deer breeding started becoming popular,” he said.

These days, old Paco would be a puny lightweight next to celebrity bucks like Freeze Frame, Big Stitch and Kid Rock, creatures that sport monster racks never seen in nature. Even Paco’s descendents now dwarf him.

“We have a 2-year-old named Paco Freeroller that scores 456 Boone and Crockett points, which means that each of his antlers is bigger than Paco was by himself. He was 219 Boone and Crockett points,” Moczygemba said, referring to scores derived from complex antler measurements.

But with the success in creating huge racks through selective breeding has come a bitter and growing controversy. While breeders say they are giving more hunters a shot at a better trophy, critics say deer are being raised like livestock and marketed like consumer products, with most bucks being shot in fenced enclosures.

Critics also say the traditional values of deer hunting are being corrupted and fear a public backlash. Lately, the debate has played out loudly on radio shows, social media pages and letters to newspapers.

Attempts to change breeder practices have been stymied in recent legislative sessions. Another attempt, filed Thursday, would require the release of antlered deer in the spring, instead of shortly before the fall hunt.

“This damned thing has changed so much it’s sickening. Everything was fine and lovely on hunting the wild animals, and then all of a sudden they changed it,” said Leonel Garza, 74, who began the “Muy Grande,” hunting contest in Freer in 1965. “These gigantic bucks don’t thrill me at all. What upsets me the most is they are taking the wild side out of it.”

But deer breeder Jerry Johnston of Castroville, founder of the Texas Trophy Hunter Association and the Texas Deer Association, makes no apologies.

“Let me tell you the real issue: The quality of the deer in the state of Texas, across the board, is three times what it was 20 years ago. And if that’s a bad thing, I apologize to Jesus,” he said.

With a wild herd of about 4 million animals and roughly 700,000 hunters, deer hunting in Texas is a big deal. For generations of Texans, the fall rites of escaping to the deer lease with old buddies remains a treasured tradition.

But the days of $100 deer and guesswork breeding are history. Now the best bucks, boasting pedigrees backed by genealogies and DNA testing, are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Just a straw of semen from a top buck can bring $5,000, and guaranteed trophy hunts for their well-racked offspring cost $25,000 and up.

A 2007 study by Texas A&M University — the latest study done — estimated that the “deer industry” pumped $650 million annually into the state economy. Experts say the industry has continued to grow since.

There are now more than 1,250 deer breeders raising an estimated 110,000 deer in Texas, operating with permits issued by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

And as breeding business has grown, so has the supply of trophy-class bucks, making Texas a choice destination of monied hunters from around the country.

Most of the pen-raised bucks end up being shot inside high fence enclosures. Because state law requires only a 10-day waiting period, some are likely killed not long after their release.

The breeder’s obsession with huge racks, sometimes disproportionate to the animal’s body size, led to coinage of the pejorative term “hornography.” Others refer to animals with bizarre, unnatural racks, as “Frankenbucks.”

Better herd or 'canned shoots’?

Since its founding, the San Antonio-based Texas Deer Association has grown to have 4,000 members, lobbyists in Austin and a half-million dollar political war chest.

“We’re a catchall organization for deer enthusiasts. We have a lot of deer breeders, hunters, ranch managers and wildlife biologists,” said President Chase Clark, a breeder in Live Oak County.

The TDA is also a “private property rights organization,” Clark said, that respects the right of everyone to hunt and manage their property as they see fit.

Breeding for bigger racks, once thought to be impossible, already benefits many Texas hunters, he said.

“We’re spreading all these great genes around the state of Texas and rebuilding the Texas deer herd,” he said.

And breeders cash in. Last year, at the four TDA auctions, almost $7 million was spent on deer and semen.

For the Moczygembas, the hobby days ended long ago. Their 400 skittish deer, some with bobbed antlers, that roam the pens on the old homestead in Karnes County generate many times the revenue that once came from cattle.

At the recent TDA auction in San Antonio, the family company sold an unborn doe fawn for $21,000.

“The biggest winner is the general public,” Moczygemba said. “Go back to 15 years. How many deer had to be born in the wild for a hunter to shoot a 200-class deer? It’s like one in 100,000. But last fall, hundreds of 200-class deer were shot in Texas. It’s all about improving the genetics.”

But as the racks get bigger and the money sweeter, raising bottle-fed fawns and trophy bucks is getting more complicated and conflicted.

Groups from Humane Society of the United States to the Quality Deer Management Association to the Texas Wildlife Association are increasingly critical of breeding and managed hunting, which some say can more resemble shopping.

In January, the Boone and Crockett Club, the nation’s oldest hunting and conservation group — co-founded in 1888 by Teddy Roosevelt and named in honor of Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett — issued a lengthy statement critical of the industry and of the “canned shoots” that it claims violate any pretense of a fair chase.

“The captive cervid industry uses selective breeding, artificial insemination, regimented feeding, and pharmaceutical drugs to achieve unnaturally large antlers. Such intensive manipulation of the natural characteristics of a wild deer and elk is a major departure from what occurs in nature, and challenges our understanding of the terms 'wild’ and 'wildlife,’” the statement read.

The club went on to criticize the industry’s basic business model.

“The purpose of breeding and shooting operations is to provide their customers with more assured kills of unnaturally grown, large antlered trophies; their motivation is profit,” said the club, which does not accept records from pen-raised or high-fence deer.

Outfitter Greg Simons, president of the Texas Wildlife Association, once booked hunts for breeder whitetails.

“For years, I’d had concerns about the direction we were heading, most specifically the breeding. As I continued to advocate my concerns, I got more pressure from my colleagues and competitors calling me a hypocrite,” said Simons, a San Angelo wildlife biologist who arranges big-game hunts.

“My answer was, 'I feel like a crack head. I need someone to help me help myself.’ As long as it was legal, I was able to rationalize it,” he said.

But unsettling situations, like the call he got a couple of years ago from a breeder with a high-fence operation looking for clients, pushed him to act.

“They needed to get some hunts. They had roughly 100 bucks they needed to sell that season, and the overall (Boone and Crockett) average was 200. They had the deer, but not the paying customers, so they were calling folks,” he recalled.

Eventually, Simons quit over a growing sense that these hunts are harmful to both the public image of the sport and certain “esoteric values” that he said some people attach to hunting.

When the once uncertain fall quest for the elusive wild buck is reduced to a guaranteed trophy kill — selected sometimes beforehand by the hunter — something important is lost, he said.

Texas hunting heritage

An advocacy group called “Texans for Saving Our Hunting Heritage” is aggressively attacking the breeders. Its board includes Tio Kleberg of the King Ranch and Joseph Fitzsimons of the San Pedro Ranch.

“Hunting is part of the fabric of Texas. It’s about camaraderie, family values, conservation and tradition. We are working to ensure future generations’ access to wild deer and wild deer hunting,” Jenny Sanders, director of the group, said.

Such traditional hunting is threatened by “the increased practice of shooting domesticated, genetically-manipulated deer in shooting preserves,” added Sanders, who, with her husband Robert manage the Temple Ranch in Duval County.

On a visit to the 10,300-acre high-fence operation, the few deer seen were fleeing into the brush, white tails flashing.

“My deer are wild. Every single one of these deer was raised on this ranch. There are no enhanced genetics. You can take what God gave you and manage it, and come up with really nice deer,” she said.

“And the argument that it’s all about 'antler envy’ falls apart when you walk into our trophy room,” she added, showing off two-dozen large typical bucks, all shot on the ranch.

But to TDA president Chase Clark, the debate is more complicated, and Sanders’ group is more noise than substance.

“It’s a Facebook page. A ghost. There’s nothing there,” he said. “There is a clash in philosophies. They don’t believe that wildlife should ever be used in a commercial enterprise.”

“And it’s hypocritical. Everyone draws the philosophical line where it’s convenient for them. She doesn’t have a breeder operation but she manages a high-fence ranch. It’s OK for her to have feeders, it’s OK to move deer around by helicopters. But it’s not OK to breed them,” he said.

The TDA, he said, makes all its decisions based on “facts and science,” and does only what the law allows.

Bagging a trophy

At the February TDA auction in San Antonio, which drew several hundred breeders and resulted in $1.2 million in sales, Clark reminded members of looming threats, including anticipated legislation in Austin.

“They are trying to put you out of business,” he said flatly.

Among the breeders, there is a sense of being misunderstood and unfairly attacked.

“A friend of mine said, 'If you want fair chase, get a loin cloth and a spear, and go after it,’” said Brent Geistweidt, owner of White Ghost Whitetails in Doss, whose wide typical racks were on display at the auction.

“We make all our decisions on what is best for the animals and the land. We do it because we’re passionate about it. We want our kids to have it, and we want to make money,” he said.

Another breeder, Dick Cain, a former wildlife biology professor at Texas A&M University, likened the debate to an ideological clash.

“I’ve listened to both sides, and decided this is no different than Catholics and Protestants, or Christians and Muslims. These are deep-seated philosophical beliefs that are irrational, and you will say and do anything for your side,” he said.

Cain said much of the conflict is driven by financial motives.

“Why is the King Ranch now against us? It cost $10,000 to hunt there for an average of a 138-inch deer. You can spend that with me and get a 200-inch deer. It’s all about the money,” he said.

“If there are going to be hunting opportunities for the masses in 2050, it will be on private hunting land with stocked deer, and why are deer different from trout, catfish or pheasant?” he said.

The most sensitive issue is how some pen-raised deer are allegedly shot in close quarters soon after release. Critics dismiss the worst of it as “canned shoots,” not even dignifying it with the term “canned hunts.”

By state law, breeders are prohibited from moving antlered deer starting 10 days before hunting season. Online searches for “Texas stocker bucks” show that many are offered for sale before this, in the late summer.

“13 Premium Stocker Bucks. 170s B&C AVG. Range: 140-200+. Age 3, 4 and 5 years old. $4750,” read an offer on the BuckTrader website posted Sept. 13, 2014.

Statistics kept by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, show the same pattern. Last fall, about 10,000 bucks were moved in August and September, shortly before hunting season, far more than in any other two-month period.

Historically in Texas, most deer have been shot from blinds, often near a corn feeder, which arguably is already far removed from “fair chase.” Critics say some breeder hunts are worse because the animals lack the natural fear of man.

In an online video to promote hunts at the J&J Ranch, owned by Johnston, publisher of “Texas Trophy Hunter,” magazine, there is little apparent mystery to killing a trophy deer.

The camera first captures a buck with a large rack, meandering in broad daylight through an open field, showing little wariness. The camera shifts to two men in camo, concealed in a blind with rifles, anxiously watching the animal approach. As the drama builds, the buck finally pauses broadside. The shooter drops it with a shot behind the shoulder. The men then rush down to marvel at its large rack.

Several experienced hunters who viewed the video said it depicts a fairly typical Texas hunt, with the only difference being the higher quality of the deer.

According to the price list posted online by Johnston, killing these large bucks can cost up to $16,000 depending on the rack. Johnston said the video was made on his 1,400-acre ranch in Dimmit County, and that the deer were not new releases.

“We have never taken deer down there, released them and shot them the same year. It’s unethical and it’s not our way of doing business,” he said.

And, he said, because it was mating season, the bucks did not display a normal wariness.

“At the peak of the rut, they’ll damn near jump into your pickup truck,” he said.

Shooting for restrictions

The legislative fight between breeders and their critics is again unfolding in Austin. The latest bill, backed by the Texas Wildife Association, would allow the release of bucks only between March 1 and June 1.

Watching from the sidelines is veterinarian Dan McBride of Burnet, 64, a founding member of the TDA, who said that while he never raised deer, he has never stopped doctoring them.

“I love deer in pens. I treat them every week. I enjoy it. I think God made the perfect wildlife animal when he made the white-tailed deer,” he said.

McBride, 64, who is also one of the 100 members of the exclusive Boone and Crockett Club, has good relations with breeders and does not object to most of their practices.

But, he said, he fears the industry’s “dirty laundry,” including how some bucks are shot soon after release, is worrisome and could provoke a damaging public relations crisis for all hunters.

“We’ll get shamed and blamed,” he said, noting that animal rights groups are already complaining.

He said if the breeders would accept a spring release, the more problematic issues, including questions about 'fair chase’ and fears of pharmaceutical residues in venison, would largely go away.

“I’m all for doing what’s right for the deer and what’s right for hunting. If it means someone has to change their business model to save the hunting heritage, that’s fine,” he said.

“Some of these things are priceless. They are things a man feels in his heart and in the seat of his britches. Hunting heritage means the same to everyone. It’s the spirit of the wild deer in the wild, and that’s something we can’t explain,” he said.

jmaccormack@express-news.net