Welcome to the North Dakota Hunters for Fair Chase Initiative web site.

On September 2, 2010, Secretary of State Al Jaeger approved the Fair Chase petition for the November election. The initiative will appear on the ballot as Measure 2. North Dakota Hunters for Fair Chase needed 12,844 signatures to qualify the proposed law for a vote by the people. Committee members collected 13,860 signatures. The message is clear; 13,860 people spoke against operations than pen deer and elk inside an escape proof pasture and then pass shooting the captive animals off as hunting.

VOTE YES ON MEASURE 2

The information on this site addresses the issue of breeding deer and elk for antler size, penning the animal inside an escape proof fence, and then selling a guaranteed shot at the product of a high fence operator's breeding program.

Breeding a buck or elk for antler size and penning the animal inside an escape proof fence for a so called "hunt" is a disgrace. But an even blacker picture of high fence operations emerges when you consider that veterinarians at Texas A & M University have been cloning trophy class Whitetail bucks since 2003. The only reason to clone a trophy buck is so the people that run high fence operations can sell copies of the same buck to multiple shooters. Breeding and Cloning for antler size is light years away from fair chase. If the citizens of North Dakota stand silent in the face of the high fence threat, our hunting heritage will degenerate to a price tag on a cloned or specially bred animal.

Article 11, Section 27 of the North Dakota Constitution declares that:

"Hunting, trapping, and fishing and the taking of game and fish are a valued part of our heritage and will be forever preserved for the people and managed by law and regulation for the public good."

Penning selectively bred, hand raised, hand fed deer and elk inside an escape proof fence and selling a guaranteed shot at the animal threatens our hunting heritage in direct violation of Section 27 of our state constitution. This threat is why a group of ordinary hunters organized North Dakota Hunters for Fair Chase, and why we seek stop these operations by a vote of the people.

The objective of the Fair Chase Initiative is to:

Enforce the intent of Section 27 of the North Dakota Constitution;

Protect and promote our hunting heritage;

Leave our children and grand children a legacy of Fair Chase hunting;

Prevent the creation and expansion of commercial markets for wildlife;

Combat the bankrupt image the paid shooting of captive animals creates, an image that reflects on all legitimate hunters.

In simple terms, we want to PROTECT WHAT'S RIGHT.

There is right and wrong. Shooting captive deer and elk inside and escape proof fence is wrong.

In Beyond Fair Chase, a book used in hunter-education courses across the country, Jim Posewitz, a hunter and 32-year veteran of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, captures the essence of Fair Chase hunting versus captive killing inside an escape proof fence:

"There are some activities that are clearly unfair as well as unethical. At the top of the list is shooting captive or domesticated big game animals in commercial killing areas where a person with a gun is guaranteed an animal to shoot. These shooting grounds are alien to any consideration of ethical hunting."

Fair Chase is a core standard of the North American Model of Wildlife Management. Under the Fair Chase standard, hunters put themselves in the field with their quarry giving the game they pursue a fair chance to escape. As the fence in the picture above attests, the elk had no chance to escape the shooter. We can't repeat this often enough: The High Fence operators shoot animals that have zero chance of escape. The animal is helpless by way of familiarity with the hand that feeds it, feeding that dampens the animals wit, and renders it helpless inside the fence that confines him.

No argument can nullify the Fair Chase standard. That is why North Dakota Hunters for Fair Chase is working to place the issue before the people of this state. We are willing to put this issue to a vote of the people, the high fence operators are not and will do anything to stop this initiative. In the long run, shooting gallery operations erode our hunting heritage. The high fence operators know that but ignore it in the interest of commercialization. It is our intent to preserve and enhance our hunting heritage by doing away with this commercialization.

The pages on this site present Fair Chase and what is means to hunting and the North American Model of Wildlife Management.