With That Comes CONTROVERSY

By: Colleen Schreiber (July/August 2007)

The white-tailed deer hunting industry is big business in Texas; in fact, it has become a cornerstone of the Texas economy, particularly the rural economy.

The industry, however, has changed significantly over the last 20 to 30 years, and particularly so over the last 10 years. The vast majority of the changes have been driven by ever-increasing demand, an almost reverent passion for big-antlered deer. It’s not at all uncommon for hunters today to $10, 000, $20,000 or more for the chance to harvest a top scoring white-tailed buck.
Deer enthusiasts have been working on improving their deer genetics for years. Back in the 1960s, Roy Hindes put up some of the first high fence in Atascosa and McMullen counties in South Texas.

“Roy, who is as staunch a cowman as there is, reasoned that if he could improve his cattle, surely he could find a way to improve his deer,” says Texas Deer Association executive director Karl Kinsel. “Early on, many thought he was nuts,” Kinsel recalls, “but several years later they began to understand when they saw that Roy was producing quality deer.”

With high fences came protein feeders, mineral feeders and quality and quantity practices, and all these management tools are now commonplace on the majority of Texas hunting operations.

Some of the biggest changes, however, at least in recent times, have come about because of the deer breeding industry. The white-tailed breeder business is operated much like a registered cattle operation. Today, deer breeders are using modern technology like artificial insemination and DNA technology to improve the genetics of the native white-tailed deer population.

They’ve also learned to effectively use the Internet, not only as and advertising tool but as a marketing tool for buying and selling the live product. Deer breeders are hosting live auctions in hotels, not auction barns, and the product being sold is displayed on video screens instead of in the auction ring or show ring. Likewise, they now have the ability to simulcast the sale over the Internet.

These animals have pedigrees, so to speak, like registered cattle. A potential buyer can look at the dam and sire of an animal, and based on the Boone and Crockett scoring system, use the information to predict the kind of offspring that particular deer will generate. Breeders also have doe records that track, for example, the number of fawns she’s produced over a period of time and track the number of fawns that grew up to be “trophy” animals.

By some estimates, the deer breeding industry contributes several hundred million dollars to the state’s economy. It’s not unheard of for deer enthusiasts to pay $25,000 to $100,000 or more for a reputation breeder buck or $3000 for straw of semen. To date, the most a breeder buck has sold for in Texas is $650,000. However, for every reputation buck sold for $100,00, hundreds of stocker buck sell for $2000-$6000.

The deer breeding industry is not a new business. People have been legally raising deer in pens since the 1960s. However, the industry is certainly more visible today, and it’s more visible because over the last five to seven years deer breeding has grown exponentially.

An estimated 40,000 to 45,000 deer are being raised in pens in Texas today, and some anticipate that number could exceed 50,000 by next year. Still, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the native population of white-tailed deer, an estimated 4.5 million in Texas.

Just a few years ago there were an estimated 250 or so deer breeders; today there are just over 1000. The Texas Deer Association estimates that about one-third of their members are commercial breeders. The other two-thirds are raising deer to turn back out on their own properties.

The breeder market, adding value to deer herds and/or adding value to land, at present, is driving demand. A lot of the commercial breeders, by some estimates as many as one-third, don’t have a product yet for sale, but instead are building toward that product. As supply for those breeder bucks exceeds demand, more of the bucks will be turned out for hunting.

Deer breeding is definitely not a traditional agriculture enterprise, but for some it is another form of animal husbandry.

“I grew up enjoying working cattle because that was my only agricultural option,” Kinsel remarks.

“Kids today have more options, or distractions we might say, but my children are involved in agriculture because wildlife excites them.”

“No one has taught me more about the power of wildlife than my oldest son,” he continues. “He understands what I’m now seeing 50-year-old hunters realize. They now realize the attraction to hunting is not just about how big a deer can we shoot. It has to do with the management and how we can grow quality animals. Hunters now don’t just shoot the first big buck they see. Likewise, if they see a 3-1/2-year-old buck that looks like a cull buck, then they’ll shoot him; if they think he might be a superior one they’ll leave him. It’s about management,” he reiterates.

Raising deer in pens, Kinsel adds, is just one of the management tools that, when used appropriately, allows landowners to control recruitment of the better genetics of the white-tailed population and to make improvements to that population in an efficient, timely manner.

“A buck in the wild will, on average, only breed two does, and of those two does only half their fawns are going to survive,” he points out, “so a good buck out in the wild can never impact a substantial herd.”

The pen, he insists, is only a laboratory.

“To really determine quality, we must first put them in a pen so that they’re all basically on the same plane of nutrition. Al we’re doing is giving these deer a good jump-start so that we can determine, much like we do with cattle, which ones are keeper heifers and herd bulls and which ones are shippers.”

Deer breeding is becoming more and more accepted as a viable diversified agribusiness. It’s viable primarily because, unlike the emu or ostrich business, the deer breeding business is product-driven. That product, Kinsel reiterates, is improved quality deer herds and in many cases improved land value.

Kinsel estimates that payout on a non-excessive deer breeding operation (payout being money back on all improvements including deer) is five to seven years.

“A deer breeder spends around $300 per head annually in feed and care,” he says, though he points out that the rise in corn prices due to the ethanol craze will have a definite impact on a deer breeders bottom line.

“Fencing, facilities, management-those things are such a moving target-a fence, though, is going to cost you $12,000 up to about $20,000 a mile depending on how many gates, braces, corners, etc.

“That’s why people get into the deer breeding business. It’s a good business. Can you get into a better one? Sure you can, but can you get into one that is monetarily rewarding, aesthetically pleasing, enhances the value of your land and excites your children? There are very few of those.”
In addition to economics, there are a number of other reasons the industry has exploded in recent years. One reason is change in land ownership. For some of these new landowners, deer breeding is a way to enhance the value of their property. For others it’s a way to prevent further fragmentation.

“Were it not for the highest fences of all, which are highway infrastructures and subdivisions, we wouldn’t be dealing with this issue,” Kinsel insists.

He uses Hollywood Park, an incorporated community within San Antonio as a prime example.

“Hollywood Park encompasses over 700 acres,” Kinsel explains. “It is fenced in by Hwy. 1604, Hwy. 281 and Hill Country Village.”

Kinsel says that after the homebuilder finished building out Hollywood Park, there were only 90 acres of deer habitat left, or about 10 percent of the total land mass.

“There is a no-shooting ordinance, thus in time the deer population grew to 700. That’s when they finally called me in. I was to trap 300 deer and move them to ranches in West Texas that wanted deer. We also set up a pen situation that they can feed into so that they can catch and remove on a regular basis.

“Before these quantity control measurements were put in place, reports of up to five deer a day were dying from starvation and/or being killed by cars.”

Though many don’t particularly care to see large tracts of land subdivided, the reality is “these small tracts, these small operations,” Kinsel opines, “are our future. They’re our children’s future. If we want landowners to keep their land from being turned into commercial tracts, then we have to give them some tools to do that, and wildlife is one of the best tools there is.”

Wildlife is also one of the most economically viable tools for sustaining rural communities, Kinsel insists, many of which wouldn’t still be here if it weren’t for hunting.

“Is land enhancement via wildlife self-serving? Yes, but while we serve ourselves, we’re serving $3.6 billion worth of community development to the Texas economy.”

Seguin veterinarian Scott W. Bugai is president of the Texas Deer Association. He and his brother inherited their grandfather’s 406-acre ranch in Guadalupe County near Seguin. Bugai’s appreciation for the land as a resource was instilled early in his life as he grew up hunting on this land where he and his wife now raise their two children.

For Bugai the deer breeding business started out as a hobby and turned into a passion. His grandfather had always run a small commercial cattle operation on the place. Three years ago, Bugai high-fenced the land and utilized a Triple T permit from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) to trap, transport and translocate deer from another location to his ranch. Bugai chose to bring in deer from South Texas. He also has a deer breeder permit from TPWD. Today he has 126 deer housed in 12 breeder pens on 12 acres. Outside the breeder pen he’s carrying about a deer per nine acres.

Bugai says that for him personally, the deer breeding business isn’t so much about the economics; rather, it’s a passion to preserve what is his.

“I’m in the deer breeding business, in part, because I don’t want to see this ranch turned into a subdivision. I want to maintain it so that my family, my children can enjoy this as I did and still do,” Bugai says. “My granddad reminded me that God isn’t making any more land. He told me I better find a way to hang on to what I had and add to it if I can. He instilled that in me and I’m trying to instill that in my kids.”

Urban sprawl is very much a reality where Bugai lives. On a regular basis, he hears of another neighbor selling out, and though subdivisions may be built up all around him, Bugai says he’s determined to hang on to his land.

“Call what I have here intensive management-not ‘wild’ if you want-bit if this place was concreted over there would be no wildlife, no deer to speak of. As it is, there is wildlife out here that people get to enjoy because of my management,” he comments.

“So I say pick your poison. Everyone can sell their land and we have no wildlife, or some of us can be progressive and use management tools so that we can afford to leave this land in native wildlife habitat.

“I would love to go back 100 years t the way things used to be, but we’re in the 21st century. We can’t go back. I can’t saddle up my mule and ride to work, so why not go forward?”

Raising deer in pens reportedly had a somewhat inauspicious start. How it got started, however, is really a moot point. The fact is, it’s a legal practice in the state of Texas. Even though all the native deer are the property of the state, a landowner who posses a deer breeder’s permit in a nutshell has the right to “engage in the business of breeding legally possessed deer…purchase or otherwise lawfully take possession of deer possessed by another breeder; sell or transfer deer that are in the legal possession of the permittee; temporarily relocate or recapture deer…and release deer from a penned facility into the wild.”

The breeder permit program is governed by TPWD. Clayton Wolf, big game program director, heads up the program. TPWD, Wolf says, does not take a position other than from a regulatory standpoint when it comes to the deer breeding industry.

“Our position basically is that deer breeding is a legal activity,” Wolf stresses. “Whether we’re talking about deer management permits, Triple T permits, breeder permits or hunting regs, our responsibility as an agency is protection of the resource.

“The deer hunting industry is important to the state economy and a lot of people, and deer breeding is now a component of that industry.” However, he warns, deer breeding is not a panacea for genetic change and it should never be marketed as such.

“We know from our studies that one super buck does not have a genetic impact on the native population. In fact, it does not matter if it’s a spike or the biggest buck in the world, in the pasture a buck will only sire about two offspring in a year,” he reminds.

“Reproductive success is only a part of the formula. To make real strides in genetic change one must look at the whole package, and that whole package includes things such as habitat.

Wolf admits that the state allows landowners some pretty liberal opportunities when it comes to management of the state’s resource. For example, in a few states that have captive breeding programs, breeders are never allowed to liberate pen-raised deer with the people’s deer.

“In other states, if you put up a fence, the landowner must purchase the deer inside the enclosure or they must drive them out. The landowner then purchases deer to put inside their high fence, and it’s those deer that may be hunted.”

However, the deer breeding business in Texas is highly regulated, Wolf insists.

“It is not a business you can be lackadaisical about,” he comments. “There are a lot of requirements that a breeder must meet in order to qualify for a permit and then maintain that permit.”

To obtain a breeder permit, individuals must complete a breeder permit application form. That form includes such things as a written breeding plan, facility/plat diagram of the deer pens, a certified wildlife biologist endorsement and a $400 dollar application fee.

The written breeding plan must identify goals, methods to achieve those goals, detailed facility description and other information critical to the plan such as predator control measures, animal health, nutrition, etc.

A certified wildlife biologist must review the breeding plan and perform an on-site inspection. The certified biologist does not have to be employed by TPWD, but he must qualify as a certified biologist according to the Texas Administrative Code.

Every dealer held in a breeder’s facility must be permanently marked by an eartag that has the deer breeder’s unique serial number. That number is assigned by the state and kept in a database by TPWD. Individual animal identification is for law enforcement purposes but also for disease management and control. Every time a deer breeder is moved, that movement must be tracked by and reported. Additionally, breeders must submit an annual inventory report to the department.

There are also restrictions that come with such permits. For example, it is unlawful, breeder permit or not, to take deer from the wild and place them in a breeder facility. Today such action is a Class B Misdemeanor punishable not only by a fine but jail time as well.
Additionally, as outlined in the regulations, “no scientific breeder shall hunt or kill or allow hunting or killing of deer held in such facilities and no breeder shall exceed the number of deer allowable for the permitted facility as specified by the department on the scientific breeder’s permit.”
There are strict disease monitoring guidelines as well. Five years ago, because of concern over chronic wasting disease (CWD) and other possibly unknown diseases, Texas shut its borders to imports of white-tailed and mule deer from other states. Semen, however, may still be brought in.

“We want to refrain from getting CWD in Texas, so we continue to be extremely proactive. The border will stay closed until we figure out the incubation period or until such time that we have a live test,” Kinsel remarks.

Breeders must conduct minimum testing of their mortalities outlined in the regs. Those who fail to comply are automatically on lockdown for a minimum of a year, Wolf says. The department also initiated a movement qualified program in April.

Wolf says he’s confident that the department and the industry are on the right track in terms of disease monitoring, control and management.

“Anytime you move an animal, you move the disease it may be carrying or the ticks, for example, that might be carrying the disease,” Wolf points out. “If you’re moving deer out of South Texas you could potentially move fewer ticks. So whether or not it’s wild deer or breeder deer, I would say early on we were too lackadaisical about the implications of moving animals. Now we’re not. Now we basically have the equivalent to the national ID system for deer in Texas. We still have a few bugs, but we’re doing everything that a national animal ID system should do plus more,” he insists.

“We’re tracking movement, so if a deer showed up with some disease we could determine where that deer had been and what other deer were exposed.”

Furthermore, existing regulations say that if a disease occurs, the department has the authority to quarantine and shut down movement of animals. The Texas Animal Health Commission may also get involved, he says, if it’s a disease carried by wildlife that impacts livestock.

Like other industries that experience rapid, exponential growth, the deer industry faces some significant challenges. As one deer enthusiast put it, “the baby has outgrown the crib.”

For all the positives that the deer breeding industry touts, there are just as many on the other side who have real concerns about what the deer breeding industry is doing, or could potentially do, to the hunting industry in Texas. The vast majority of their concerns deal with ownership, the 10-day rule, habitat issues, current and new regulations, and ethics in general.

Those on both sides if the fence have wrestled with some of these challenges for several years but, in part because of the growth, some of these issues have become more challenging and more difficult to resolve.

It has also become more challenging because the industry, in general, is extremely polarized. As one deer breeder put it, “Because I’m a deer breeder, sometimes I feel like I’m a Christian at an Atheist rally.”

Tom Vandivier is one of the landowners on the TPWD’s white-tailed deer advisory committee. He also serves on the deer management committee for the Texas Wildlife Association. Vandivier has 5000 acres under high fence and does his best to manage the native population of white-tailed deer living within the boundaries of his high-fenced operation. He has not added pen-raised deer to the native mix.

Vandivier says he looks at the deer breeding industry with a suspicious eye. Like many others, he is a purist at heart.

“I prefer to keep things natural the best way we can in a way that nature intended. I hate to see deer domesticated,” Vandivier says. “They are a wild creature, and part of the allure of deer hunting is the wild, natural setting. To think that deer are bred in a pen, manipulated genetically and then turned loose for hunting purposes bothers me. That’s my personal opinion. On the other hand, I recognize the deer breeding industry, and I think it’s here to stay.”

Dan McBride is a veterinarian by trade and a founding member of the Texas Deer Association. Today McBride works one-on-one with some 200 deer breeders across the state.

“I love working with these animals,” McBride comments. “They charge my heart up like nothing else.”

McBride has had the opportunity to watch, up close and personal, the industry grow and morph into what it is today. He fields calls almost on a daily basis from people who are interested in getting into the business or from others who simply want to buy some deer. Just the other day, he had a call from an individual in the oil and gas industry who said he had $400, 000 to $500,000 that he wanted to spend to buy some deer.

McBride understands the challenges that come with growth, but he stresses that those challenges did not happen overnight.

“The very fist time we put deer in pens we drew a line in the sand, and we’ve been walking towards that for 35-40 years,” he comments. “Now we’re going to line up on both sides of that line, and others of us will straddle that line.”

McBride was born into a ranching family in Llano County, and he’s been a lover of white-tailed deer all his life. Like many, McBride is a realist but purist at heart.

“I’ve been accused of riding the fence. My heart tugs towards purity, but I also respect those who love deer for whatever purpose they want to give them, and as long as it’s legal to do what they’re doing, then I’m all for them.”

Greg Simons, a wildlife biologist and owner or Wildlife Systems, an outfitting company based in San Angelo, works with customers on both sides of the fence, inside and outside the pen, so to speak. He has a great deal of respect for some of the deer breeders in the business today, yet he also has some real concerns.

For example, Simons is concerned about the “extremes” going on in the deer breeding industry when it comes to manipulation of the antlers. One of the ways breeders are reconfiguring antler development is by importing semen from bigger Northern deer.

“Hunters in general are willing to pay more for the opportunity to hunt larger-antlered deer, and the economic scale is considerable more,” he points out. “However, I do think that it’s unfortunate that through selective breeding, deer may develop antler configurations that are not representative of what a white-tailed deer is intended to look like.

“I’m not saying that’s good or bad,” he continues, “but when all these non-typical deer grace the cover of our hunting magazines, we should be cognizant that we are perhaps creating a false perception.”

Bugai admits that he, too, is concerned about this practice.

“Northern deer look different than Texas deer,” Bugai remarks. “They’re bigger, they have long red hair.”

However, Bugai understands that demand drives all businesses, and it is the big rack that many consumers demand. That said, he is hopeful that with some education this practice may perhaps be moderated.

Bill Eikenhorst, DVM, Brenham, is a director in the Texas Wildlife Association and someone who, like his colleague Dan McBride, sees the industry from both sides.

“This reverence to antlers has driven wild deer hunting in Texas to take on an artificial, physiological approach,” Eikenhorst insists.

However, he points out, the deer breeding industry didn’t invent manipulation.

“Humans have been manipulating animals since before the birth of Christ. There are many examples in the livestock industry where we’ve used intensive selection with purely production in mind. The dairy industry is a perfect example.”

That said, Eikenhorst stresses the importance of responsibility.

“The bigger and better the tools become, and the more effective they are the more duty and responsibility we owe to use them as well, because the edge of intensity cuts in both directions,” he stresses.

Simons also voices concern about what he calls “genetic pollution” or “genetic degradation.”
“We must look beyond the horizon and ask ourselves, are we developing a genetic characteristic of that deer herd that is not as capable of dealing with the same environmental pressures that the native wild animals have to deal with?”

He admits it is difficult to quantify such things, either visually or through actual research. Still, it’s a concern and one that he says the industry should keep in mind.

Simons also points out that there are some aspects of modern-day wildlife management, tools like AI, that to some may appear to be on the “plastic” side.

“If we do anything that appears to ‘artificialize’ the wildlife resource, do we reduce the intrinsic value of the resource? It’s a question we must consider,” he reiterates.
Public perception, Simons insists, is another real concern.

“We live in a society where, in many cases, people’s values are based on perception. We must remember that almost 90 percent of our public does not hunt. When we talk about how deer breeding fits into hunting, in the eyes of the non-hunter, do we compromise their perception of us as hunters and also their perception of hunting in general?

I don’t think we can afford to run a full page ad in a magazine with a picture of a bottle-raised fawn and a picture of a buck with a fence in the background and at the bottom of that page have a picture of Joe Hunter holding a dead deer. I think that sends the wrong message,” he stresses.
The concern over bottle-raised fawns, Bugai insists, is really more of a perception problem than reality, because the vast majority of those animals, he says, will be breeding stock, not hunting stock.

“Deer breeders bottle feed fawns in some cases to ensure survivability because most of them have a heck of an investment in those animals.”

Still, Simons stresses that the industry must be cognizant of how animals raised in captivity are incorporated into a hunting program.

“We need to be very mindful, very conscientious and perhaps strategic so that we implement that breeding program into a hunting program in a fashion that does not compromise the moral values of our hunting ethic.”

Simons is somewhat familiar with some of the changes that are taking place n the hunting industry in South Africa. Hunting in South Africa has changed, perhaps, more dramatically than it has in Texas. For example, there are few wild lions left in South Africa. Today most lions are raised for a portion of their life in captivity.

Simons says that because the people weren’t doing a good job of regulating themselves, the South African government recently passed a new law that says any lion that is raised in captivity cannot be hunted for a period of two years. That’s an attempt to try to eliminate “canned” lion hunting.

“We need to make sure that our peer group does a good job of creating their own codes of ethics and peer bylaws so that we send the right message to those people who, in general, may be critical of our hunting practices,” Simons stresses. Education, he says, is a tool that must be used to accomplish this task.

The deer breeding industry, McBride concludes, undoubtedly has made Texas deer better. Like Vandivier, he understands why “manipulating bambi” bothers some people, but like Eikenhorst he points out that there are few things on Earth that man hasn’t touched or manipulated in some manner.

“It’s considered a smart business practice to strive to produce a heavier calf at weaning, but when we try to produce a bigger deer, it’s called manipulating,” Bugai counters. “We’re using some of the same practices that are used in the livestock enterprises and extrapolating them to fit the deer business.

“Why do we feed cattle? We feed deer for the same reason,” he reiterates. “It’s just as much about economics for a deer breeder as it is for a cow-calf man or producer of fish and fowl.”
The purist McBride doesn’t particularly like what has happened in the deer breeding industry, yet he can understand that business side of the matter.

“There are some in the deer breeding industry who didn’t grow up as hunters; therefore, they don’t have that hunting heritage,” he notes. “They see deer breeding purely from the business perspective.

“And yes, some are manipulating these deer in pens beyond what you can imagine, but it’s big business, and there’s big money in big business.”

Just last week he worked on a doe that was valued at $30,000, and the week before that he worked on a buck valued at $230,000.

“Are they worth that? Man must recreate. That’s what my dad used to say when I wanted to go fishing,” he says.

“It is not only about money, but if it weren’t about money, animals would not be propagated,” Kinsel says. “We’ve seen that in exotics more than anything else. In their native countries there was no incentive to propagate them. Texas landowners are willing to propagate them because they’re worth something because we can sell them for propagation or hunting.

“So there is absolutely an income incentive to the deer breeding business and to the producer, supplier and outfitter.”

Buying a breeder buck for half a million dollars and then using him to sell semen to other breeders is no different, he insists, than syndicating a good registered bull.

“When you can sell enough progeny out of that animal to pay for the animal, then it’s worth the money,” Kinsel opines. “When you can’t recoup your investment from production or land enhancement or family hunting, then it becomes ego.”

Though the deer breeding industry is a viable alternative ag practice, Simons reminds that it’s a “blip on the screen” compared to the overall value of deer hunting to the state of Texas.

“Ultimately, the only way the deer breeding industry can capture value is if hunting remains healthy,” Eikenhorst adds. “If the practices employed in the industry devalue, diminish or erode, intentionally or unintentionally, the value of hunting, then they’re robbing their own value system and creating a potential risk to hunting.”

TPWD’s Clayton Wolf agrees.

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