Amended captive-deer bill would prohibit drugged hunts

Owners of Indiana's fenced hunting preserves would be forbidden from selling a deer for a hunt within 24 hours of it being sedated, and only animals born and raised on Indiana deer farms could be hunted.

So read two new additions to a bill that would set regulations for captive-deer hunting in Indiana. The bill passed the Indiana Senate's Natural Resources Committee on a 6-3 vote Monday.

The bill's agricultural and business boosters, including representatives for Indiana's nearly 400 deer farms, touted new changes to House Bill 1453 as a way to satisfy critics who worry that interstate shipments in trophy deer could spread disease to Indiana.

Critics also argue that one Indiana preserve owner already has been accused of illegally drugging his trophies.

"I think this bill does a really nice job addressing those concerns," said Rep. Sean Eberhart, R-Shelbyville, the bill's primary sponsor in the House.

However, opponents of captive-deer hunting testified Monday that they would accept no compromises.

To them, high-fence hunting is appalling and should be illegal in Indiana. Opponents that included wildlife advocates, animal-rights activists, environmentalists and hunter associations testified that the bill opens the door for what they call "canned hunting" to expand and thrive.

"This doesn't regulate the practice," said Jeff Wells, president of the Indiana Conservation Officer Organization. "It deregulates the practice."

Wells was in charge of a team of state and federal wildlife officers whose investigation led to a conviction in one of the nation's most egregious captive-deer cases.

In 2005, Wells' team testified in federal court that Peru, Ind., hunting preserve owner Russ Bellar had been selling hunts to wealthy clients in pens so small that conservation officers called them "killing pens." Bellar also was accused of using illegal drugs on his deer. Jurors were shown video footage of a hunter shooting one of Bellar's deer that appeared drugged.

But the bill's boosters testified that the new language prohibits such scenarios.

"At this point, we have compromised on every point our opposition ... has made," said hunting preserve owner Rodney Bruce. "We've basically given them everything they've felt like they've needed."

But Wells testified that the preserves' very business model prohibits the animals from have a sporting chance.

"This is not about hunting," Wells said. "As the price of this animal increases, the guarantee increases. I'm not paying you $20,000 for a trophy white-tailed deer and not leave that facility without that white-tailed deer."

The bill sets minimum acreage and fencing height requirements for hunting areas, as well as licensing standards, fees and hunting seasons for preserves. Under the bill that passed the House, no new preserves would be allowed to open. Four are currently in operation, but there were about a dozen prior to 2005.

The newly amended bill also includes a provision that says Indiana taxpayers wouldn't have to pay a preserve owner if state officials kill his or her deer in the event of a disease outbreak.

Such outbreaks can be costly.

In 2009, an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis at three Indiana deer farms and on a hunting preserve cost taxpayers $1.2 million, much of which came from federal reimbursements for slaughtered animals.

Occasionally, states have been forced to pick up the tab for such reimbursements.

The committee's vote sets the stage for a definitive vote in 2015 on whether the controversial practice of high-fence hunting will become officially legal in Indiana.

Last year's bill failed to advance in the full Senate by just one vote.

For nearly a decade, annual legislation that would formally legalize captive deer hunting has failed to advance in the General Assembly.

Many of Indiana's deer breeders sell animals or their semen in the interstate trophy-hunting trade. They say hunting preserves provide a critical "terminal market" for the animals they sell.

But after Bellar pleaded guilty in 2005, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources tried to shut down the state's hunting preserves, saying they were unethical and posed a disease threat to wild deer.

Bruce and other preserve owners sued.

The matter was tied up in court, and the fenced hunting ranches that stayed in business were allowed to sell hunts without oversight from the DNR, whose conservation officers enforce hunting laws.

The Indiana attorney general's office this month challenged an appellate court ruling that found the DNR had overstepped its authority.

The challenge before the Indiana Supreme Court is pending, but it could be withdrawn if the Senate passes HB 1453.

Call Star reporter Ryan Sabalow at (317) 444-6179. Follow him on Twitter: @RyanSabalow.