Jim Posewitz

I respectfully recommend that the people of North Dakota consider and support an initiative seeking modification of the North Dakota Century Code that would prohibit the shooting of captive wildlife or non-traditional livestock.

Game animals, managed as a public-trust by the State of North Dakota, have considerable social and cultural value. Their value comes from the fact that they are wild animals, rescued from the brink of extinction, and restored to a wonderful abundance as a public resource. Their value was established and enhanced through more than a century of fair chase hunting by North Dakota sportsmen and women. Taking these animals has traditionally represented gaining honor through effort. These values are both taken and diminished where fee shooting of captive animals is tolerated.

Killing wildlife for their commercial values nearly destroyed the abundance of wildlife Lewis and Clark marveled at when they passed through North Dakota two centuries ago. Half way between Lewis and Clack and today, President Theodore Roosevelt embedded a conservation ethic in our culture that halted the commercial slaughter and began the restoration of wildlife. TR’s vision was molded by his experiences on the North Dakota landscape. The land spoke to Roosevelt and your state has successfully preserved this legacy that changed the course of history for an entire continent. Keeping the ‘wild’ in wildlife will be consistent with Theodore Roosevelt’s values and North Dakota’s dedication to their preservation.

TR’s message crosses the century that divides his time from ours with remarkable clarity. In a way, Theodore Roosevelt took aim on the future when he addressed conservation in our young democracy. We live a century down range from TR’s presence among us and can judge the accuracy of his aim. The North Dakota landscape of that time was littered with the bones and carcasses of what had been a wildlife resource described as exceeding, “…anything the eye of man has ever looked upon.” Today, once again, we enjoy a wildlife resource that belongs to all the people of North Dakota and is the envy of the world. It has been restored by the people and for the people. Those who seek to domesticate what we have embraced as wild, while making a mockery of hunting by shooting captive animals, place this cultural achievement at risk.

As you consider voting on this issue, please also consider the philosophy and the words of our predecessors in wildlife conservation and hunting passed to our custody along with the restored wildlife we all enjoy.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT’S

PRINCIPLES OF THE HUNT

“…preserve large tracts of wilderness … and game … for all lovers of nature, and… for the exercise of the skill of the hunter, whether or not he is or is not a man of means.

 …the conservation of wildlife, and … all are natural resources, are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose and method.

…the rich … who are content to buy what they have not the skill to get by their own exertions – these are …the real enemies of game.

When hunting him (wapiti) …He must be followed on foot, and the man who follows him must be sound in limb and wind.

…skill and patience, and the capacity to endure fatigue and exposure, must be shown by the successful hunter.

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life…”

These principles gave wildlife and hunting the value now being taken, sold, and ultimately diminished in captive shooting pens. I close with one final Roosevelt writing that clearly anticipated this day.

“I should much regret to see grow up in this country a system of large private game-preserves kept for the enjoyment of the very rich. One of the chief attractions of the life of the wilderness is its rugged and stalwart democracy; there every man stands for what he actually is and can show himself to be.”

Prepared by Jim Posewitz. Following a 32 year career with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Jim now serves as executive director of Orion the Hunters’ Institute. Founded in 1993, Orion the Hunters’ Institute is a hunting advocacy organization focused on hunter ethics and the conservation heritage of hunters. His perspective is respectfully offered for consideration by the people of North Dakota, the state that played such a vital role in the genesis of wildlife conservation in America. Wildlife conservation, and the sporting code at its core, were born in North Dakota and have been sustained there since the late 19^th Century.

http://www.huntright.org/

July 27, 2009

North Dakota Hunters For Fair Chase Committee

Dear Fair Chase Committee:

In addition to the Game Farming Position Statement that has been passed by the Mule Deer Foundation’s (MDF’s) Board of Directors, this is a letter of support for your endeavors to help solidify the health of North Dakota’s big game populations, the hunting heritage that we in this country hold dear to our hearts, the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation (NAMWC), and the principles of fair chase that make the NAMWC a success.

With the statements in the MDF’s Game Farming Position Statement in mind and held to be true, the Mule Deer Foundation supports the initiated measure being brought forward by North Dakota Hunters For Fair Chase, which would prohibit the shooting of captive big game & exotic species in high-fenced shooting operations.

The MDF is supportive of healthy, free-ranging wildlife populations.  The MDF is supportive of fair chase methods of hunting these populations.  The disease concerns (CWD, TB, Hair Loss Syndrome, etc.) that exist with fenced enclosures for big game & exotic game animals, along with the concern for fair chase standards that we have in the United States, are two of the biggest reasons why the MDF is supportive of this measure.

Sincerely,

Miles Morretti

President/CEO

Mule Deer Foundation

404 E. 4500 S., Suite B-10

Salt Lake City, UT, 84107

www.muledeer.org

 MDF GAME FARMING POSITION STATEMENT

The Mission of the Mule Deer Foundation (MDF) is to ensure the conservation of mule deer, blacktail deer and their habitat.

MDF is dedicated to the following goals:

1)        To restore, improve and protect mule deer habitat (including land and easement acquisitions) resulting in self-sustaining, healthy, free ranging and huntable deer populations;

2)        To encourage and support responsible wildlife management with government agencies, private organizations and landowners;

3)        To promote public education and scientific research related to mule deer and wildlife management;

4)        To support and encourage responsible and ethical behavior and awareness of issues among those whose actions affect mule deer and their habitat; and,

5)        Support regulated hunting as a viable component of mule deer and blacktail deer conservation.

The Mule Deer Foundation defines game farming as "the intensive husbandry of privately owned game animals held captive under non-free ranging conditions."

 Game farms raising native and exotic big game animals have dramatically grown in both size and numbers across North America in recent years.  Coinciding with this growth has been the growth of concern for wild, free-ranging big game populations, that are through the powers granted in the U.S. Constitution, the management responsibility of the individual states of our great country.

 There have been serious disease outbreaks on big game farms in recent years.  Currently there are no live animal tests that can assure that individual animals are free of chronic wasting disease (CWD) and certain other diseases.  In fact, it is not even currently known just exactly how CWD is transmitted from one animal to another.  The transmission of CWD from game farms animals to wild free-ranging mule deer and blacktail deer populations could be devastating.

 With these facts in mind, the Mule Deer Foundation:

 1)        Supports the enactment and enforcement of game farm regulations that protect the sound health and genetic viability of wild, free-ranging mule deer and blacktail deer.

2)        Supports the state wildlife agencies responsibilities in regulating game farms so as to ensure the sound health and genetic viability of wild, free-ranging mule deer and blacktail deer.

3)        Believes that raising captive mule deer and blacktail deer on private game farms poses serious threats to the health and genetic viability of wild, free-ranging mule deer and blacktail deer populations.

(800) 767-5082

(701) 255-3031

Aug. 14, 2009

North Dakota Hunters For Fair Chase Committee Bismarck, ND

Dear Fair Chase Committee:

This letter serves as support for the efforts of the Fair Chase Committee in eliminating high fence hunting in North Dakota. Fair chase hunting and the traditions therein are highly valued by this organization, our family and our friends. We believe that the integrity of hunting and respect for the animals we pursue is of paramount importance, those standards having been established by historical leaders and the courts of this country many generations long ago.

Dakota Country magazine offers its support of fair chase rules dictated my moral conscience. It is our sound belief that these standards must be defended and maintained as part of American culture and hunting traditions.

Sincerely,

Bill Mitzel, Publisher Dakota Country Magazine

Sept. 19, 2009

 The Fair Chase Initiative should be supported by anyone who cares about the ethics of hunting, whether that person is a hunter or not.  Most real hunters would never consider shooting a big game animal in a fenced enclosure, yet somehow these “game farms”, or whatever one wishes to call them, have proliferated in North Dakota during the past decade.  They need to be banned, and The Fair Chase Initiative is the first step in accomplishing that.

The State of Wyoming banned game farms years ago, and just a few years ago, the State of Montana “grandfathered in” existing game farms and banned the creation of new ones.

Dr. Valerius Geist, noted wildlife researcher from the University of Calgary, once said that if game farms weren’t banned in the province of Alberta, there would not be a free-ranging elk in the province by 2050.  He pointed to the danger of disease transmission—specifically chronic wasting disease—which could easily be transferred to free-ranging big game animals.  It is a danger often overlooked in the game farm debate.

There should not even be a debate on this issue.  I find it unsettling that there obviously is a ready market for shooting big game animals behind a fence, where the animal has absolutely no chance of escaping.

Bernie Kuntz

Outdoor Columnist

The Jamestown (ND) Sun

MuleyCrazy Magazine

February 9^th, 2010

North Dakota Hunters for Fair Chase

Dear Fair Chase Committee:

My name is Ryan Hatch, owner of MuleyCrazy Magazine.

This is a letter of support for your efforts to help protect the big game populations of your state as well as around the country. By working to eliminate high-fence hunting operations, you are also working to: improve the image of the average hunter, reduce the artificial spread of wildlife diseases such as tuberculosis (TB) & chronic wasting disease (CDW) in your state and across the country, and reduce the potential invasion of the Asian louse into North Dakota which leads to what is commonly called hair loss syndrome in mule deer.

MuleyCrazy Magazine is 100% behind what you are working towards — keeping wildlife populations wild and protecting the ethics of fair-chase that we, as true sportsmen, hold in high regard. Big game was never meant to be fenced in and pursued without the ability to escape their predators, whether those predators be man or four-legged.

Teddy Roosevelt said it best when he said, “The wildlife and its habitat cannot speak. So we must, and we will.”

Thank you for your efforts to protect what’s right.

Yours Truly,

Ryan Hatch

MuleyCrazy Magazine

42 No. 100 East

Kanab, UT 84741