Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Deer Breeders Pissed--Walk Out of TP&W Commission Meeting

Commission vote came after months of talks.

Deer breeders walk out of Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission hearing

Anti-breeding forces want to see strict regulations to protect wild deer from chronic wasting disease.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission adopted new rules Monday to combat a disease found in deer, but the new rules could put a strain on many of the state’s 1,300 deer breeding businesses.

The commission’s vote came after months of discussions with interested groups, including breeders, ranch owners who sell hunting leases, environmental groups and livestock organizations.

The purpose for new regulations is to address how the state is going to deal with chronic wasting disease. The neurological condition — which affects deer, elk and maybe moose, but not humans — can cause weight loss, behavioral changes, brain lesions, excessive salivation, pneumonia, difficulty swallowing and head tremors.

It was discovered last year at a breeding facility in Medina County, near San Antonio.

With the commission’s unanimous vote on Monday, deer breeders will have to comply with increased regulation. There will be limited movement of breeder deer across the state, increased postmortem testing for chronic wasting disease and more live testing for the disease, too.

Deer breeding opponent Jenny Sanders, who is executive director of Texans for Saving our Hunting Heritage, called the commission vote a win.

Sanders, who also has served a manager on the 11,300-acre Temple Ranch near Freer in South Texas, said chronic wasting disease as a major threat to white-tailed deer in Texas and to the multibillion-dollar hunting industry. The state had the responsibility to protect the state’s 4 million white-tailed deer, she said.

Not everyone agreed with Sanders and the commissioners.

Particularly frustrated were few dozen members of Texas’ biggest deer breeding group, who walked out of a meeting before the vote even occurred.

Breeders involved with the Texas Deer Association said they believed the members of the commission had come to the meeting with their minds made up.

Marty Berry, a breeder from South Texas, said he felt like the commissioners didn’t care to hear from breeders.

“Nothing else can be accomplished at this level, “ he said.

Hugo Berlanga, a former member of the Texas House from Corpus Christi and owner of a deer breeding business, said the breeding industry in Texas is already on “life support.” The new regulations will come with high costs and will force some breeding operations of out business, he said.

“They have done so much damage to breeders,” he said.

Berlanga said the process was rigged to the benefit of large ranch owners who fear competition from smaller businesses that are often close to metro areas.

“It’s a bunch of elitists. I can’t explain it any simpler than that,” said Berlanga, a board member of the Texas Deer Association.

Sanders, whose group’s members include some representatives from major Texas ranches, has rejected the notion that the breeder fight is about large ranch owners trying to eliminate competition from breeders.

Rather, she said in a recent op-ed published in the San Antonio Express News, that “a small group of deer breeders” has “embarked on an effort to undermine” the efforts of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Josh Havens, a spokesman for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said the commission has heard testimony from a number of individuals who either represent themselves, organizations and landowners.

“(T)his is a public resource issue, and the commission will make their decision based on science and what is in the best interest of the states wildlife and hunting heritage,” Havens wrote in a text message.

Berry, the South Texas breeder, said his and other breeders’ fight won’t end with the commission vote.

An already-filed lawsuit is going to be part of the answer, he said.

“That’s going to be the next step before the Legislature,” he said.

I have a truck driver friend that delivers trophy farm deer to many of these trophy hunt places. He hates it... But it's big bucks, and he does it a heck of a lot more than I ever thought they do it.

I have no problem with that. I'd rather chronic wasting not be spread.

I was unaware they had that capability. I thought they needed to look at the brain much like for rabies. miles

From a blog that I check once in a while:

"The USDA in conjunction with the University of Colorado have been doing research on reliable live testing for CWD for some time now. Earlier this past spring more live test were being done and through Tonsilar swabs and Nasal swabs have produced very accurate and reliable live test data. Test were done on free range deer in Colorado, Wyoming and several large captive deer herds were tested ,test results of the first three captive herds showed no trace of prions in test animals. Free range animals that were tested showed both positive and non positive results in real time. More live test were just done in NY via tonsil swabs and nasal swabs with great results. Herd that was tested in NY came back negative. This along with tonsilar biopsy and or rectal biopsy show great leaps in research in just the past 5 years."

Sounds like a bunch of butt-hurt teenagers that didn't get their way.

Missouri is currently in legal talks to ban the import, export, selling and breading of deer.

In essence eventually it will be illegal to be a deer farmer or operate a high fence deer outfit in Missouri

Yep! Born and raised in TX and love the state but they've turned their deer hunting into a joke. Sad really

No more chicken fried back straps? That sucks!

I feel for the guys that shelled out time and money to get into a legal business that seemed to have high potential for growth and earnings only to find out they're about to be out of business.

Having said that, this is something that should have never been allowed to happen (deer farming) and the sooner it's stopped the better.

David

It was TPDW that allowed Deer Breeding in the first place. And now some Breeders are upset because TPWD wants to regulate the business to keep CDW from spreading to the native population, tuff. Their is no guarantee of a profit when you are in business. In fact most business fail, these folks know the risks.

THankfully its not spread as far as folks would believe from a few articles.

There are lots of acres of land that will never see anything but wild bred deer.

OTOH whats wrong with simply trying to prevent the spread of a disease that can not only ruin captive but wild breeding populations.

Once again follow the money.

Pizz on Texas deer breeders. Simply disgusting what the state has allowed but not surprising at all.

Top of the morning, Ed. Do not go around, mincing words. Tell us what you realy think.

:-)

Knowing that anytime you crowd animals up close, danger from disease increases, If you can test your tame deer live, it seems that you could keep this stuff in check and out of the wild herd. Arkansas had changed its laws about keeping deer before they found the CWD in the wild. I don't keep up with it all, but they kept hobby deer owners from breeding their deer and they had to keep does and bucks separated. Phasing it out and only people that already had deer could keep them. I don't know about high fence operations, or if there are any, but I suspect there are. miles

Yes, but TPWD is now changing the rules of the game years after many of these people invested their personal stakes in the business. When government regulation wipes out a thriving business with a stroke of a pen people are going to get upset, because their livelihoods are being damaged.

Again, I 100% think this should NEVER have been allowed to come to this point, and I think the entire practice should be illegal, not just more carefully regulated. But you can't blame the people that followed a legal business opportunity. This is a TPWD created problem.

David

Yep. The golden goose popped out a big stinking turd instead of more eggs as expected.

They can still do it. they just have to follow a new set of rules, that really don't seem to be unreasonable to help curb the spread of CWD.

Here in Montana we went through something similar with fenced elk farms a few years ago--which also shouldn't have been allowed in the first place.

As it turned out, not only were a number of elk "breeders" lax about their fencing, allowing plenty of potential for CWD-infected animals to infect wild elk, but at least one fenced operation was herding wild elk inside its fences. Instead of outlawing game farms, however, we simply outlawed "hunting" the tame elk inside the enclosures.

The owners can still sell the meat, hides and antlers, just like cattle ranchers can sell their animals, but without the massive $$$$ paid by some people to shoot huge-antlered bulls inside corrals, there wasn't any reason to import genetically "enhanced" elk, and the chance of CWD dropped enormously.

There should not be Deer farm ,deer breeders ,deer pin up . Their wild not a farmer thing . the deer are feed pellets made from deer by products so they are fed deer with sickness an CWD TB an what ever sickness out there