Sometime in August, 100 or
more elk from an Idaho game farm escaped though a hole in the
fence. The elk were from a domestic herd bred for huge horns and
are known as “shooter bulls,” meaning they’re destined to be shot
with bow and arrow or rifle by clients who engage in an elaborate
fantasy that they are hunting the real thing — elk in the
wild.
The game farm near Rexburg, Idaho, that the elk
fled from is called Chief Joseph Idaho, and one can’t help but
wonder what the real Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Tribe would have
thought of that. Even as Idaho wardens kill these escaped elk in a
highly controversial control effort, new game farmers such as
ex-Denver Bronco Rulon Jones have targeted the state as the perfect
site for expanded operations.
The runaway shooter bulls
belong to Rex Rammell, a veterinarian and self-described “freedom
fighter” and “mountain man.” Rammell never reported the escapes,
preferring the Idaho tradition of taking care of your problems
yourself — especially when you have a long list of violations
and your farm elk have run off into the surrounding countryside,
where the wild elk of Idaho are in the height of the rut.
Rammell says that he and his family could have recaptured all the
shooter bulls — they’ve repatriated 40 so far — by
luring them into catch pens with their favorite treats of
molasses-soaked barley. At this point, complains Rammell, state
game wardens have scattered and killed them. Rammell has not said
what he was doing to catch his elk during those weeks before state
wildlife officials drifted by to check out the rumors of an escape.
Wildlife officials from Idaho, Wyoming and Montana say
they are worried about interbreeding and the possible spread of
bovine tuberculosis, brucellosis and chronic wasting disease;
Rammell insists that all of his elk are healthy. We’ll have to take
his word for it, since he has protested every effort from the Idaho
Department of Agriculture to test them. Apparently,
freedom-fighting mountain men don’t like to deal with pantywaist
government employees.
And in Idaho, apparently, no one
makes them, even when they have a business that endangers a public
resource. Idaho game farmers lobbied successfully to have their
industry regulated by the Department of Agriculture, because they
claimed that state wildlife officials were hostile to domestic elk
farms. It is true that agriculture officials have been supportive,
even if at times they did have to issue a few citations. In 2002,
Rammell racked up some $750,000 worth of fines for not complying
with agency rules concerning his domestic elk. But convenient
action by the Idaho Legislature meant that most of the fines were
forgiven.
In Idaho, more than anywhere else in the West,
people get elected to office on the strength of their hatred of
government. Once there, they take grim delight in destroying the
intent of the institutions they have been elected to serve.
Meanwhile, states such as Colorado, Wyoming and Wisconsin are
spending millions of taxpayer dollars in an attempt to control
chronic wasting disease. Walking away from active governing is no
problem, perhaps, as long as you live in a relatively empty region
with nothing at stake. But in Idaho, what’s at stake is the
continued existence of healthy herds of true wild elk.
Idaho is one of the few Western states that has failed to address
the game farming issue. Now, game farmers like Rulon Jones have
zeroed in, looking for the last best complacent place to build huge
fences, kill off the wild big game inside them, and install
domestic elk for clients to shoot. The experience that they sell,
like any deviant fantasy, is delicate and must be carefully staged.
That’s why Rammell didn’t want to use the orange ear tags on his
elk that would have allowed wildlife agents to quickly track them
down now that they’ve escaped. Rammell needs to sell an illusion of
the Wild West, even as his clients kill up-close and in an
enclosure.
There is a catch: The kill at Rammell’s game
farm is only guaranteed if you also hire one of Rammell’s guides.
If you dare to match wits on your own against one of those giant,
molasses-loving bulls, there’s no guarantee. Hunting all by
yourself is what the farm’s advertisement calls “the ultimate
challenge.”
Rammell says he’ll sue the governor and
anybody else who kills or has killed his escaped elk. Rammell also
promises that he’ll run for governor himself. Perhaps the voters of
Idaho face an ultimate challenge, too.
Hal
Herring is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of
High Country News in Paonia, Colorado (hcn.org).
He is a writer in Augusta, Montana.
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