KDFWR Officers Seize Three Illegal Elk

[LoweBow]

Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources News Release

KDFWR Officers Seize Three Illegal Elk

October 19, 2005 Contact: Mark Marraccini
IMMEDIATE RELEASE (800) 852-0942

Frankfort, KY - Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources law enforcement officers seized three illegal elk Tuesday and cited a northern Kentucky man for violating the state's deer and elk importation ban.

Roy Fritz, 55, of Verona, faces three counts in Boone District Court, November 7, of possessing elk without the appropriate permits. Additional charges relating to transporting elk into the state may follow as the investigation continues.

"I don't think he fully grasped the seriousness of bringing those animals into the state," said KDFWR Lt. Bobby Newman. "He told us that he hoped to raise them for a while and then turn them loose."

A 2002 Governor's Executive Order, intended to stop the rapid spread of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) at the Kentucky state line, makes it illegal for any person to transport live deer or elk into Kentucky.

CWD is a Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE), the deer and elk equivalent of Mad Cow disease. The recent discovery of CWD in West Virginia and New York extends the disease's spread to 14 states and two Canadian provinces and has wildlife biologists alarmed.

The disease was discovered in a captive herd in Colorado more than three decades ago. It was contained in that small area for 30 years, but began its spread in the last decade as deer farmers across the country stepped up interstate transport in their efforts to grow their operations and trophy animals.

Newman said Fritz bought the three elk at an auction in Lima, Ohio last Tuesday and brought them to Boone County. He said they remained on the livestock trailer until Sunday when they were moved to a small pen which had been assembled from fence gate sections. He was joined by officers Chris Fossitt, Dennis Sharon and Dennis Davis and wildlife biologists Brian Clark and Clay Smitson Tuesday in seizing the animals.

All three elk were euthanized and taken to the University of Kentucky Diagnostic Laboratory for analysis.
"We must protect our white-tailed deer and free-ranging elk herds from this disease," said KDFWR Commissioner Dr. Jon Gassett. "Kentucky's deer herd ranks in the country's top three and we have the largest elk herd in the eastern United States. We simply cannot relax our vigilance now.

"It takes only one slip - one infected animal slipping past us - and we will be looking at some serious and expensive problems," he said.

-30-

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR) manages, regulates, enforces and promotes responsible use of all fish and wildlife species, their habitats, public wildlife areas and waterways for the benefit of those resources and for public enjoyment. KDFWR, an agency of the Commerce Cabinet, has an economic impact to the state of $4.8 billion annually. For more information on KDFWR, visit our web site at fw.ky.gov.

[Skipper]

This incident clearly shows why many sportsmen, most state game agencies, and several sportsmans organizations are opposed to captive cervid operations. KALA has petitioned the League, Farm Bureau, and the Kentucky Legislature to support it in expanding the number of permits issued for captive cervid operations in Kentucky and to stop the governor’s executive order that prohibits the importation of cervids from out of state. Obviously, what this guy did was criminal, and it may or may not be supported by the KALA members, but here not there, it illustrates that controlling what individuals do in regards to moving animals around may be all but impossible. There are thousands of roads leading into Kentucky from out of state, and as such, there are thousands of ways deer or elk may be transported into this state from other states. We have on average, 1 game warden per county. There are approximately 15 roads leading out of Tennessee into Kentucky in Whitley County alone. There is no way that our 1 game warden can patrol 15 roads and stop every stock trailer entering the state. I have no idea how many enforcement officers the Department of Agriculture has, but knowing that they cover a broad set of things including making sure scales read correctly in grocery stores and checking gasoline pumps to make sure we get a gallon of gas that we pay for, and knowing that I have only ever met 1 agriculture enforcement officer, and that was at the county fair when he comes to check papers on the show stock, and knowing he is the same guy I sometimes see sitting in the medium near Richmond on I-75, I can only conclude that if he works from Richmond, KY to Williamsburg, KY, he has way too much territory to work effectively.

Do we really want hundreds of deer and elk farms scattered all over this state with deer and elk coming in and out on a regular basis? Do we want someone deciding that they want to “raise them for a while and then turn them loose.” Maybe someone in Benton wants to hunt elk in the Purchase region and decides to raise and turn loose half a dozen elk. Is that something we want happening? What if these 3 elk this guy brought in came from Michigan originally where tuberculosis got loose from a cervid farm several years ago and resulted in TB getting into the wild deer population which eventually led to Michigan’s cattle farmers loosing their TB free status. Do we want to have to hire enough state employees to check every stock trailer crossing the state line on every possible entry way? Obviously, that is cost prohibitive.

Even disease free, do we really want private individuals turning elk loose outside the restoration zone creating a whole separate set of problems from the ones we already have?

I have said for a long time that if CWD gets into this state, the most likely method will be in the back of a stock trailer. It’s not just me that has said that. Jim Lane agreed with that statement as did Jonathan Day and Stan Stooksberry (TWRA manager at Royal Blue). It seems to me, that there is a very real danger to Kentucky’s wildlife, Kentucky’s cattle industry, and the economy that both of them generate for the state from expanded cervid operations and lifting the ban on the importation of cervids. Of course the KALA crew will say, we want to protect our herds, and aren’t doing this. Make no mistake though, if these kinds of things are allowed to happen and grow in scope, human nature toward greed will enter in the equation, and somewhere along the way we could find ourselves with a serious problem. Sure, there are laws now on the books to stop some of this, but how do you enforce them? Of our 86 cervid operations, I can’t help but believe that the majority are small deals with 2 or 3 deer for pets. However there is a segment of that group that isn’t in the pet keeping business, and the dollars that are required from the taxpayers to enforce laws and keep them honest isn’t something the KDFWR or Department of Ag has or is willing to spend. We sure don’t need a larger problem than we have now. We have been told by the cervid farmers at our meeting that there is no profit in raising deer for meat, skins, antlers, deer pee, or other products. They have told us that their profit is in selling “Trophy” bucks to “hunting” operations or in the hunting operation itself. If we allow these sorts of operations to go on, the fact that they can make $5,000 or better on a trophy hunt animal lends a lot of temptation to getting that trophy animal from whoever they can, and getting it to Kentucky however they can. They have also indicated in our meeting that the does weren’t valuable at all. Do we run into a situation where someone is turning does out of cervid pens because they aren’t worth the feed and time to raise? What happens if that captive herd as a TB infected animal in it, and does from that herd are turned loose in the wild so that they don’t have to be fed and cared for by the farmer?

The long and short is this. Farming Cervids in Kentucky is dangerous business for wildlife and agriculture on a lot of levels. Sportsmen and Farmers alike need to be well informed about this industry and the potential it has for causing the rest of us problems we never asked for and can’t afford.

Skipper

[Taxi Mike]

Skipper__________________
"This incident clearly shows.....
.....Obviously, what this guy did was criminal, and it may or may not be supported by the KALA members, but here not there, it illustrates that controlling what individuals do in regards to moving animals around may be all but impossible. There are thousands of roads leading into Kentucky from out of state:"

Beyone that I'm not so sure you said anything that was clear!

And the numberous assertions you spout could just as easily have been said to create "Prohibition" and I'm pretty sure were used to create a number of gun control laws, etc....

This is a fun fact but as "leaders" it is something to keep in mind! The maharajah of an Indian Province issued a royal decree. He ordered that no one was to kill any wild animals while he was the country's leader. The decree was honored until there were so many Bengal Tigers running loose that the people revolted and threw the maharajah from power. This is the first known instance of the reign being called on account of the game.