OPINION:
As recently reported in The Washington Times, new legislative bills moving farmed deer under the oversight of the Department of Agriculture will be heard again this session following the controversy of last session’s debates in Jefferson City, Mo. (“Missouri bill to switch oversight of deer farms returns,” Web, Jan. 6). The bill is still needed because the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC), which oversees deer farms, is pushing regulations that are designed to put the farms out of business.
In October 2014 the MDC adopted regulations that banned the import of all deer from out of state into Missouri hunting preserves. At the surface this may look like the MDC wants to ensure deer are not imported from states with Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). But the agency did not even allow import of farmed deer and elk from states that have not found CWD. Instead the MDC banned all farmed deer and elk. This includes, by the MDC’s definition, deer family species such as Fallow Deer, Axis Deer and Pere David Deer, all of which have been deemed non-susceptible to CWD by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
This blanket ban of species that cannot even contract the disease shows one of two things: Either the MDC intends to simply choke out the hunting of deer in private preserves, or the MDC’s wildlife officials are not informed enough. Whatever the case, the Missouri Department of Agriculture is better equipped to address CWD than the Missouri Department of Conservation.
TRAVIS LOWE
Executive director, North American Elk Breeders Association
Lawrence, Kan.
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