Posted on 10/16/2010 2:31:10 AM PDT by Palter
After hours of scouting the bone-colored badlands at Cedar Ridge Elk Ranch here, hunter David Regal took aim and fired twice from his .300 Winchester Magnum rifle. One shot killed a bull elk that weighed 700 pounds, wore a 12-point set of antlers, and cost the shooter $8,500.
"I like to get the best there is," says Mr. Regal, 72 years old, who owns an excavating business in Michigan. He drove 1,100 miles here with his brother in a motor home, towing his black Hummer behind.
Cedar Ridge is one of North Dakota's dozen or so private hunting ranches, enclosed by high fences and stocked with farm-raised elk and deer. Here, well-to-do hunters like Mr. Regal pay for a guaranteed shot at some of the most majestic prey in the West.
On Nov. 2, North Dakota voters will decide on a ballot initiative that would do away with these ranches. What's surprising is that the battle over Ballot Measure 2 doesn't pit hunters against their natural adversaries, animal-rights activists, who have long opposed the ultimate blood sport. Rather, the debate is dividing hunters themselves.
As private hunting ranches proliferate nationwide, hunters are grappling with what it means to participate in one of the oldest American sports. Fights like the one in North Dakota have broken out elsewhere, and national hunting groups are piling into the debate.
On one side are hunters who say fencing in wildlife for profit is unethical and shifts hunting from its populist American roots. They say the reserves are creating an elitist model reminiscent of "King's hunting" for the European gentry long ago.
Leading the effort to ban the ranches in North Dakota is Roger Kaseman, a lifelong hunter who once lived off the land for two years in a remote Wyoming cabin.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
“With its vast stretches of golden prairies crossed by ragged peaks,”
I’m not a ND expert, but I’ve passed through a few times. I never saw any peaks, ragged or otherwise. Maybe I was looking in the wrong place.
Shooting a farm raised elk doesn’t meet my definition of hunting. It’s like shooting a cow with antlers. Not sure it should be illegal, though.
There’s a point where you still “hunt” and there’s this other thing called “wannabe-hunting”. I’m for the open market...it tends to make sense. But this pretend-to-hunt is a bit of a joke.
I am reminded of that Alabama story of a couple of years ago...where the kid was proclaimed this big-hunter for killing a wild boar of a 1,000 lbs. In the end, we all laughed over an arranged (and paid) hunting trip by the kid’s dad, with the wild and oversized boar just being a friendly hog raised by a family and sold to a hunter’s club.
It’s just like buying a side of beef but you kill it yourself for some reason.
Is this America still? Do we have private property rights?
I doubt this is hunter v. hunter. Sounds more like envious control-freak v. humanity.
Also...the effort to ban canned hunts is a dangerous road to travel; and I guarantee it would become theinitial step of an effort to ban the raising & slaughter of other animals...poultry, beef, lamb, emu, pork, etc.
Although a "guaranteed" hunt is not my idea of hunting...why should hunting be limited to "my idea of hunting".....? I slaughter my own beef, pork, poultry, and lamb....it's not a hunt, but it's guaranteed.
Fine -- let the wannabes with cash out the wazoo shell out for one of these "hunts". Who cares?
They'll come out, get pampered, take a punch in the shoulder from a pristine magnum, get a few pictures, go home, strut. BFD.
Few will ever get up where hunting really is hunting, vice target shooting with a live and reacting target. As long as the animal doesn't suffer from Walter Mitty's misplaced shot, it's little more than a high-priced and exclusive "wilderness" theme park.
Some might make it into a "hunter's" mag, with glossies, but the people who really are hunters are going out and doing their thing. A few might take some of the articles out with them to serve where paper is really needed.
Let the people who have owned the land for years and are trying to find ways to keep their family's ranch going (yes, I know there are some corporations involved, but some are also family-owned) drain some dollars from a gentleman hunter to keep their heritage intact.
this idea could also
be applied to any beef operation.
.......................
the sportsman would pick out
the best looking beef, ....boom....
a day later, a delivery van shows up at your house
with the meat.
Is this really any different from these clowns that set up a deer blind next to their deer feeder and waits for the deer to come for a meal and then “blammo!”?
Actually....culling the bull or hog of lesser quality for the family table is the rule here. The elderly chickens get the honor of the soup pot....
Kinda like the fisherman with chum, a baited hook & a net?
Many are not "clowns"...but keep in mind that the older hunter, the disabled hunter, and those too ill to walk & stalk benefit from a blind. Many have stalked and walked most of their lives and are no longer able...but are still American hunters.
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
Bait v artificial lure
catch and release v creel limits
gun v bow
flintlock v modern
you name it and I've seen one sportsman look down his nose at another based on differences in personal choices.
and the whole time PETA and the rest of the morons just laugh as we spend money fighting ourselves.
hell, I've seen pretty heated arguments over baiting vs no bait and the use of commercial scents...
sportsman ought to agree to disagree within our community on these issues, but also should agree not to seek legislation that puts PETA's nose under the tent...which is what legislation like this does.
the Trout Unlimited people lobbied in MD and DNR closed off whole sections of streams in Garrett county to bait fishing...without even seeking public comment.
if this goes through, as someone correctly stated, WTF happened to private property rights and individual choice?
I'll be damned if I want some guy telling me how to hunt or fish...and I'm not going to do the same to anyone else. (I'll still have an opinion, I just won't voice it)
I hope this law is defeated.
Regards...
Further down that road is using dogs to hunt. Dogs on hogs, coon hunting, etc. Or even having dogs fights. It’s your property, you should be able to do what you want to it. Even if other people think it’s wrong.
Good post.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Think fox hunts in England and the movement to ban....
Agreed.....We use dogs for quail hunting and a well trained dog never harms the bird....
Not what I consider sporting. But I also wouldn't want laws to ban it - after all, killing a cow with a bolt gun isn't very sporting either, but I like a good hamburger. And like you said, this gets PETA into the debate, who could care less about what is sporting or not, they want it ALL banned - sporting, non-sporting AND hamburger.
Yep. Pampered and a guaranteed kill – all for $8,500.
If they can afford it let them spend their money, many are probably once a year “hunters” and it would be safer for everyone else if they’re closely supervised.
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