The Texas Deer Mafia? From the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department last December:
AUSTIN, Texas — Game wardens in the Special Operations Unit of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Law Enforcement Division have arrested six men and executed two search warrants as part of Operation Texas Shuffle, a year-long investigation into the black market deer trade in Texas.
"Our focus here is stopping two main areas of criminal activity: deer being brought illegally across state lines, and wild deer being illegally laundered into deer breeding facilities," said Col. Pete Flores, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department law enforcement director.
… [The names of the bad guys are listed here which is how I learned about the issue. One of the bad guys is in a feud over an easement with an adjoining landowner—a client of mine.]
Deer breeding is a legal and growing business in Texas, estimated by one breeder organization to be worth about $650 million per year for the state economy. It is illegal to capture or obtain wild deer and place them into breeding facilities. Breeders must obtain captive, pen-raised deer from other permitted breeders. There are currently 1,099 permitted deer breeders in Texas, holding 86,989 deer in 1,161 facilities. The vast majority of these are whitetail deer, and the rest are mule deer, the two native species in Texas.
"Money is driving the illegal trade in wild native deer," said Capt. Greg Williford with TPWD Law Enforcement Division’s Special Operations Unit. "A captive-raised breeder buck can sell for tens of thousands of dollars. So, catching deer in the wild seems a lot less expensive, until you get caught."
Update: I can't believe I misspelled "deer".
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8 comments:
I don't understand it. What do they do with these deer? Are they making money on venison? or are they selling "hunting" experiences within a confined space?
I'm sure it's the latter or both actually but the money is in the "deer leases."
Ranchers down here during the season "lease" their properties for hunting. Hunters pay pretty dearly for the privilege. It's extraordinarily regulated and therefore expensive. These jerks were trying to avoid the regulations.
Honorablt hunters (all I've ever met), even if not using the venison themsleves, take them to places where they are butchered for free and taken to food banks and the like.
Farmers/ranchers in MN and ND and SD also charge hunters to hunt on their property. But I don't think there's any deer raising/breeding nor capturing going on. It sounds like any operation in which people are raising/breeding or capturing would have to be a setting in which the animals are confined for the hunt -- otherwise, the deer owners don't really own anything since the deer could/would wander to neighboring properties. I'm not cool with that (regardless of whether the deer are bred/raised or captured). I will to my dying day root against the Utah Jazz because they loved their Karl Malone who shot a cougar after cornering it at one of those confined-space hunting things.
I supppose one might buy deer to be released on lands without “game fencing” but it wouldn’t make sense to me.
I understand your feelings on game fencing but if it’s a tool that helps in the overall conservation of the species, I’ll just avert my eyes and bear it.
When you say "corner," please tell me he didn't actually corner the cougar against the fence?
It would be one thing to track a deer on a 1000 acre ranch that has a perimeter game fence (I'm trying hard to imagine being able to corner one and just don't think it could be done), but cornering any kind of animal against the fence for the kill would seem less than "sporting" to me.
What do I know, I've never hunted a day in my life. Well, two hours of duck hunting with my brother and we never even saw a duck.
Searching "cougar hunting" produces a lot of ... ahem ... false hits.
I remember Malone cornered the cougar in a cave, though. It was in a bio piece on him during a game - -probably post-season.
Really, we have to do "updates" to correct spelling? Former blog brother had said that wasn't necessary.
"Cougar Hunts" I may be occupied elsewhere for a while.
If Malone did that in a cave, shame on him.
I only updated because dear for deer was so dopey.
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