Putting People First / April 7, 1994 ==================================== Washington Report FROM THE TRENCHES by Kathleen Marquardt Chairman, Putting People First ...A weekly opinion column about the struggle against "animal rights" and eco-extremists. Copyright@1994 Putting People First Permission to reproduce this column is freely granted on the condition that credit is given to Putting People First. Putting People First is a nonprofit organization of citizens who believe in rights for humans and welfare for animals, and who oppose the goals and tactics of "animal rights" and environmental extremism. ----------------------------------------------- Putting People First PO Box 1707 Helena, Montana 59624 (406) 442-5700 Fax (406) 449-0942 ----------------------------------------------- MONTANA GOVERNMENT USING BOGUS SCIENCE TO JUSTIFY KILLING ELK HERD, DESTROYING GAME FARM INDUSTRY A storm is brewing here in Montana that has implications for quite a few other states. A government agency has decided that a certain group of farmers must go -- game farmers, but only the game farmers who raise elk. Farmers who raise buffalo and deer are not under attack -- yet. Montana's Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (MFWP) has provided a lot of information about game farms -- to reporters, hunters, the general public. But it is not necessarily correct information or the "whole truth." It sure reads well; the government PR experts have a gift for convincing rhetoric. The problem is that when both sides of the issue are heard, MFWP's does not stand up to close scrutiny. MFWP spokesman Ron Aasheim says he does not understand Putting People First's interest in the game farm issue. As he so aptly points out, on its face this not an animal rights issue. But what MFWP is trying to do to game farmers is exactly what animal rightists would be doing if they had thought of it first. They are trying to put game farmers out of business. And MFWP is using animal rights tactics -- they take a small kernel of truth, sugar coat it with a big lie, and get the unsuspecting public to swallow it whole. MFWP maybe fighting along side us on most issues, but they are carrying the water for animal rights on this one. The question is why? Why does MFWP want to rid Montana of game farms that raise elk? This is a complicated issue, made more complicated by a player that, on the face of it, should be supporting that which it is trying to destroy. To understand the essence of MFWP's all-out assault on game farms, you have to understand the players, the playing field, and the stakes. It took a lot of digging for us to understand the "wherefores;" I am not entirely sure of the "whys" yet, myself. First, what is game farming? Let me focus on elk farmers, since that is what MFWP is sighting on. Game farms raise wild animals for meat, scent, antlers, and hunting. Game farms bring money into Montana and pay taxes. Early game farmers got their game from the wild. Today's game farmers get elk from other elk breeders around the country. Up until recently MFWP was even in the business of selling elk to game farmers. Also until recently, game farms were not very stringently regulated. When the government finally got around to writing regulations, the game farmers worked hard to bring their operations quickly into compliance. (I think it goes without saying that there is usually one bad apple in every group, and game farming probably is no exception, but every farmer I know is more than eager to be considered ethical by complying with the laws.) So all was well in the game farm world until 1990. For whatever reason, that year MFWP began lobbying sportsmen, hunters, and wildlife organizations in an attempt to discredit the game farm industry. Anti-game farming stories were "farmed out," so to speak, everywhere possible. Charges that the game farm animals were going to spread disease and pollute the genes of our native elk were dished out with regularity. So let's compare MFWP's charges with some expert opinion. Are game farm elk going to spread disease -- TB is the disease du jour -- to the native wild elk? According to Montana's State Veterinarian, no. Six herds of game farm animals have been tested positive for TB. Two of those have been destroyed; two passed follow-up tests, are clean, and have been taken off quarantine; and of the last two, one is about to be released from quarantine while one is still having problems. "Forget the game farmers' compliance," MFWP says, because the TB test supposedly is faulty and it's not catching infected animals. But the State Vet says the test is triggered so easily that it's more likely to show animals positive when they are not. In another example of adjusting science to suit their case, MFWP is testing for genetic mutations using tissue samples from carcasses and gut piles instead of drawn blood -- but the experts say the test is only valid when done on live animals. MFWP worries that in New Zealand TB was spread by possums from a farm to the wild and that could happen here, as well. Again, according to the State Vet, that has never happened in North America and is highly unlikely; even when there was a huge infestation of TB on cattle ranches, it never spread off the ranch. The Vet said there was something about the possums' metabolism that allowed it to carry this type of TB, and it is not present in this hemisphere. In fact, the Brush-Tailed Possum does not even exist in Montana. Montana Wildlife Federation has a story in their latest newsletter echoing MFWP's TB scare: "Rodents scurrying in and out of game farms will also spread disease. Tuberculosis has the potential to destroy Montana's wildlife populations." I say that it is these false and inflammatory charges -- words on paper -- which are what will destroy the Montana game farmers. Not truth, not facts, but resupported "what ifs." Now let's look at a potentially more threatening charge, that game farm elk will hybridize our wild elk with red deer genes. According to the experts we have contacted that is nigh on to impossible. As of 1991, importing red deer was banned in Montana. Montana game breeders supported the ban on red deer and began to rid their herds of any animals testing positive for red deer genes. The few elk left that have tested positive for red deer genes are being held on the Montana/North Dakota border -- 400 miles from the closest wild elk -- and by this fall they will all be gone. So the red deer are gone from Montana's game farms. Surprisingly, the ban was not that meaningful in the first place, according to the geneticists. They say that the native elk's genes are dominant. In order for the red deer gene to mutate the elk, the animals would have to mate over and over and over again. That has not happened, and will not happen now, with no red deer left in Montana. Here's where PR posturing comes into play. MFWP is threatening to kill an entire herd of wild elk near Avon in west-central Montana because of tests from meat and gut piles -- tests that are inaccurate at best. As Putting People First knows from talking to the experts, the only thing killing those elk will do is cause the public to be outraged. I believe that MFWP hopes the outrage will be directed at the game farmers. Already MFWP has carefully fueled the fire under the game farmers. Killing a herd of 120 to 150 elk will fan the flames. I say, aim the outrage at those who deserve it -- those anonymous bureaucrats and their minions who have played fast and loose with the truth to press a faulty case. There is really no difference between what MFWP is doing to Montana's game farms and what the animal rights extremists are doing, industry by industry, all over America and the world, to shut down every human use of animals. Animal rights activists, and now an arm of Montana's state government, are using the media to prejudice an uninformed but caring majority of our population against a small portion of fellow humans. Again and again they use this tactic of divide and conquer, and why not, it works and works well. We are easy to sway. But it is time for us to demand a stop to this. Which group of us is next in line? So far I've written about what is happening -- as I said at the beginning of this column, I haven't figured out why yet. Why does Montana's Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks want to destroy a small but thriving industry in our state? Many explanations come to mind. Bureaucratic empire building and a struggle for power with Montana's Department of Livestock, which regulates the game farm industry. Greed for even more hunting license revenues, which would become MFWP's monopoly if the game farms' hunting revenues were legislated out of existence. Or -- I hate to think of it -- has MFWP become infiltrated with animal rights believers, like so many other states' wildlife bureaucrats? Whatever the reason, we must not allow a herd of healthy elk to be gratuitously destroyed, just on the grounds of faulty tests "adjusted" to fit MFWP's warped conception of reality. Please write today to Montana's Governor Marc Racicot and urge him to intervene with the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to stop the destruction of the elk herd near Avon. Governor Racicot's address is State Capitol, Helena, Montana 59620-0801, or telecopy 406/444-4151. If you are a Montana resident, please say so in your letter. If you are from out of state but hunt or visit here, point that out. Let Governor Racicot know that an attack on game farms is an attack on every other animal industry and occupation. Regardless of the "whys," we must not let animal rights extremists or their fellow travelers carve another slice off the salami. Attached to this column is a Putting People First Special Report with more details about MFWP's attack on our game farmers. Please take the time to read it, write Governor Racicot and fax me a copy of your letter at 406/449-0942. If Putting People First succeeds with nothing else by exposing this, I hope the elk herd near Avon will be spared. Killing those animals would be strictly for effect and would serve no purpose other that to cause outrage. So save the elk and keep one more group of decent Americans in business. +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | SPECIAL REPORT | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ MONTANA'S ELK RANCHERS SQUEEZED BY STATE OFFICIALS Game farm elk breeders in Montana face increasing pressure and regulations from state officials that may force the closure of all game farms in the state. Their objections to captive-bred elk are fourfold: disease, hybridization of wild elk, habitat competition, and the cost of regulating the industry. A statute dating from 1889 allows Montana citizens to own wild animals. In the 1930s the state setup the first license requirements for game farms. A game farm is much like a cattle ranch, but with different animals. Major markets for elk include breeding stock, dried antler product, meat, scent, and hunting. Montana's Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks (MFWP) made their first objections to game farms in 1983. They claimed game farmers were in competition with MFWP because they removed land supporting a wildlife species from production. To deal with increasing concerns about game farms, a Governor's Committee was appointed to propose legislation for a 1983 session. Drawing members from all affected groups, the Committee agreed on new legislation to regulate game farms, saw it enacted, and the game farm situation then ran smoothly until 1990. Showing an antagonistic interest in game farms since 1990,however, MFWP has lobbied sportsmen, hunting, and wildlife organizations in attempts to discredit the game farm industry. Putting People First's Chairman, Kathleen Marquardt, happened to be in the audience one day when this occurred to a group of bow hunters. Public opinion has proven pivotal in bringing pressure on game farmers. Attacks in the media have become common. The Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department is the force behind the current assault on game farms in the state. After game farm legislation was enacted in 1983, MFWP had little contact with the game farm industry until K. L. Kool was appointed Director of MFWP by then Governor Stan Stephens. [Montana's current governor, Marc Racicot has since appointed Pat Graham as the agency's director.] Kool hired Gary Burke to head the Special Investigations Unit MFWP. According to Burke, game farm scrutiny erupted when a shipment of diseased elk arrived in Alberta, Canada in 1990. Bovine tuberculosis was discovered in these elk. The diseased animals originated in Nebraska, but had passed through Montana. The Canadian government slaughtered half the captive elk in Alberta in an effort to curb the disease. After this devastating TB incident in Canada, Montana game breeders were required by law to begin routine testing for TB. Currently, every time an elk is moved within, into, or out of Montana, it is tested for TB. According to Heidi Youmans, Special Project Coordinator of MFWP, the TB test used was developed for cattle and appears to respond differently in deer and elk. Dr. Owen James, acting State Veterinarian for Montana disagrees. Dr. James notes that "the single strength cervical test is awful sensitive." The test is so sensitive, he says, it occasionally results in some "false positives." According to Dr. James, when the state veterinarians get a positive TB test, they test a second time with a "comparative cervical" test. This step should eliminate false positive readings. Dr.James believes the TB testing system in use is accurate. If anything, "it will take a few negative animals," not leave TB carriers free. MFWP also distributes a story about a situation in New Zealand in which TB was passed from a farmed deer population through a brush-tailed possum to wild deer. Dr. James says tuberculosis never has been moved by a rodent in the United States. He suspects there is something about the metabolism of the New Zealand opossum that allows it to get this type of TB. Dr. James emphatically states that although there have been serious outbreaks of tuberculosis in cattle in the US, it has never been transferred to rodents. "The second charge against game breeders is potentially the most threatening: hybridization of wild elk. This bit of clever propaganda may well turn the tide of public opinion against all game farms. One regional newspaper columnist has called elk "the symbol of wildness in the West." An article in Bugle magazine by Jim Posewitz, former special assistant to the director of MFWP, suggested it is ethically wrong to keep elk behind a fence. Even the perception of a threat to the purity of the Rocky Mountain elk could be a death blow for game farms. Dr. Peter A. Dratch is a senior forensic scientist for protein analysis with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Oregon. He has done extensive research in elk, red deer, and tests for detecting hybrids of the two. According to a paper written by Dr. Dratch and presented at the Wildlife Professionals Symposium in Reno, Nevada in 1993, elk are easily distinguished from red deer when compared side by side. Elk are one- third heavier and their coats are different shades of brown, ranging from beige to chocolate. Red deer are reddish brown, and their coat coloring is more uniform. Bull elks have a distinctive whistling bugle, while red deer stags roar. A first generation hybrid between the two animals is easy to detect with biochemical tests and visual inspection of physical characteristics. However, a second generation hybrid, especially if one parent is pure elk, is much harder, maybe even impossible to detect. There are specific genetic "markers" in biochemical tests to differentiate between subspecies of wild deer. Dr. Dratch wrote MFWP in a letter that blood from a live animal is required to make use of the primary marker tests. The primary markers are hemoglobin and a protein in the blood called post transferrin. The secondary markers are superoxide dismutase and transferrin. The secondary markers do not have absolute genetic differences as do the primary markers. Instead secondary markers show what scientists call "frequency differences." For example, the results of a secondary marker test would be evaluated in this manner -- this sample shows material more common in elk than in red deer. The reliability of hybrid testing is crucial to the game farm issue because game farmers stand accused of genetically damaging the wild elk of North America. Tests results from a poaching case caused MFWP to blame game farmers for allowing red deer or red deer/elk hybrids to escape into the wild. This has been the substance of many of the most damaging MFWP stories in the press, but these tests are ambiguous, and were improperly conducted using dead animals. In contrast to MFWP's explicit charges, however, the testing lab report on the poaching case shows results, using the secondary markers, that are "more typical of samples from elk-red deer hybrids than from native North American elk." Another report concluded, again using only the secondary markers, that certain samples "could come from elk, red deer, or an elk-red deer hybrid." Another test batch with samples taken from meat packages concluded the animal in question was "either a cow elk, red deer hind, or female elk-red deer hybrid." The last test samples were taken from a gut pile and tissue from a hyde. The results were "cow elk, red deer hind, or elk/red deer hybrid." Until this issue is resolved, MFWP has targeted an elk herd near Avon, Montana for further testing and possible annihilation based on hybrid tests the inventor says are not definitive. According to Heidi Youmans, currently MFWP plans continued study in the area, relying on hunter supplied meat samples. Obviously, those samples will be dead, thus extending the improper use of the genetic test. Les Graham is Executive Director of Montana Game Breeders Association, and former Director of the Montana Department of Livestock. He told PPF that, as with the TB testing, captive elk breeders have dealt with the escapee problem. "In the last two or three years, there haven't been any escapes of red deer," Graham says flatly. In 1991 MFWP proposed an emergency rule to make importation of red deer or red deer hybrids into Montana illegal. This became a permanent rule in March 1992. Montana game breeders supported this decision, and have since included blood testing for hybrids in their routine management. If a red deer or red deer hybrid is discovered, the animal is destroyed or sold out of state. Bob Spoklie, former executive director of the Montana Game Breeders Association reports, there have only been 50 elk out of 2100 in the captive herds that tested positive for the red deer gene. He says that by fall in 1994, these all will be gone. The North American Elk Breeders Association supports a registration program which allows a game farmer to register his elk as pure-bred. Since pure-bred elk command a higher price than either red deer or hybrids, it is not in the game farmer's best interest to maintain a red deer population. The third argument against game farms is habitat competition. Historically, there have been many accidental, intentional or ill- advised introductions of new species into eco-systems. The English sparrow, nutria, knapweed, and Russian thistle are examples. Any introduction of a non-native species runs the risk that the new arrival will out-compete native inhabitants for limited natural resources. In this particular case, however, captive-bred elk are still elk. They shouldn't pose a competitive threat to the native elk population. Some observers comment that a collateral issue in habitat competition is that MFWP is very protective of its domain. The agency oversees a $100 million budget and with license fees a money making operation promoting big game hunting in Montana. It wants to control all land which produces elk as a product, even if this tramples on the game farmers right to do as they wish with their private property. "A final issue threatening the game farmer is the cost of state regulation. MFWP is keeping track of the cost to regulate games farms, and at the same time is calling for even more regulation. Based on MFWP statistics, game breeders fear, the agency soon may propose high fees for all services to the game farms, some of the fees to be levied per elk. Game farmers suspect this is a tactic to bankrupt them out of business. An antler drying plant in Antelope, Montana, one of the few in the U.S., produced $750,000 worth of product last year. Even this one example of a small segment of the elk breeder's business shows the game farms comprise a large,tax paying industry in the state. Glen Marx, a spokesman for Governor are Racicot, told PPF that all industries in Montana are important. In contrast, Montana state Senator Terry Klampe [a Democrat, whose district includes parts of Ravalli and Missoula counties] is on record with his intention to propose legislation for the 1995 session which would ban game farms. In the end, the elk remain at the center of the battle between game breeders and Montana state regulatory departments. Elegant symbol of the West or source of income to ensure the family farm continues to the to the next generation? Diseased, genetically impure despoiler or money making proposition? Free ranging, unspoiled Great Wapiti of legend, or economic new livestock? Either way, Montana's elk have migrated to the forefront in the struggle between government regulators and private property rights.