BISMARCK (AP) -- North Dakota deer and elk ranchers who run fenced hunting operations want the Legislature to approve new regulations on their business, hoping that will deflect complaints from critics who believe fenced hunting is unethical.
"We can go back and say, look, it's in (state law). This is how we have to conduct our business. We're not shooting fish in a barrel," said Brian Kramer, a spokesman for the North Dakota Deer Ranchers Association. "We are conducting a legitimate hunt out there."
Kramer asked the North Dakota Senate's Natural Resources Committee on Thursday to endorse legislation that would require a fenced hunting business to pay a $300 annual license fee to the state Board of Animal Health. The panel did not immediately act on the bill.
The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Joe Miller, R-Park River, requires a fenced hunting operation to be at least 160 acres and says it must provide "adequate cover to provide the animal with a reasonable opportunity to elude the hunter." Hunting on the preserves also would not be allowed at night.
The legislation declares that a fenced hunting operation is "an agricultural enterprise and is considered to be part of the farming and agricultural industry of this state, and must be afforded all rights, privileges, opportunities and responsibilities of other agricultural enterprises."
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North Dakota has about a dozen ranches that offer the chance to shoot a trophy deer or elk for a price. Opponents of the practice say it violates the hunting ethic of "fair chase," because the animals are within a fenced preserve and cannot get away.
Critics of fenced hunting put an initiative petition on North Dakota's statewide ballot last year to ban the operations. The measure was defeated, with its opponents saying that a ban would violate the property rights of game preserve operators.
No fenced-hunting critics testified at Thursday's hearing. The bill's only opposition came from Peter Lies of New Rockford, who raises big game and said the 160-acre minimum size for a fenced-hunting operation was too large.
The committee's chairman, Sen. Stanley Lyson, R-Williston, and several committee members questioned why deer and elk ranchers were pushing for the measure after they had defeated their critics at the ballot box.
"What gives the . . . supporters of the bill the impression that if we pass this, the opposition groups would just go away?" asked Sen. David Hogue, R-Minot. "I just don't understand how if we pass this, they're going to say, 'OK, let's leave the fenced hunters alone.'"
The bill is SB2332.
