# CWD & Elk in Canada



## nodakoutdoors.com (Feb 27, 2002)

I briefly mentioned this in my Nov. article, but I thought I'd bring it up here as well.

While in Sask. the other week, we ran into TONS of farms that had gotten into the elk business. It was a booming market a couple years ago, but with CWD their market has shut down altogether. The only market left is sending the velvet to the Far East.

One landowner we spoke with was going out to dig a giant hole for their neighbors. Because of the droughts up there, they can't afford to feed them anymore and are going to shoot them one by one and bury them, except for the bucks for their velvet.

The same goes for their beef market. Supposely (nickel ditch could probably explain this better than myself, I'm paraphrasing him) a guy from Louisiana moved up by Saskatoon and brought with him his head to start ranching up there. One of his cattle tested positive for CWD and it resulting in a complete shutdown of the market out of Saskatchewan. So like the elk, the ranchers are just sitting on their cattle and can't export their beef to the states.

The CO said that in some areas US guys are getting shutdown for land access because of this. They'll say, "You Americans won't eat our beef so you sure as hell won't hunt on our land!" **door slams here

I wasn't aware that their problems up there were this severe. Pretty sad really.


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## adokken (Jan 28, 2003)

[It was a case of mad cow desease in Alberta that shut down the cattle exports. Personally I wish elk ranching would come to an end in ND before we have cwd here.[/b]


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## muzzy (Mar 21, 2002)

Most of the Elk ranches started for the velvet antler market where the asian markets make medicinal medicine and aphrodisiacs. They cut the antlers off of the bulls before the harden. Not much of a market for anything else, they will never be able to compete in the meat market as beef will always undersell it due to the difference in raising conditions and the mass quantities of cattle in the US. I don't know what the velvet antler market is, but a few years ago it took a drastic downturn and there were some Elk ranchers that had several years worth of antlers in their freezers waiting for a market upswing.

This is where the game farm hunting came in. When the captive elk numbers rose and they couldn't get as much money anymore for selling live animals as breeding stock, coupled with the downturn in the asian medicinal markets (both due to glutting of the markets), they turned to selling captive hunts. People will and do pay thousands and thousands of dollars to shoot a large bull elk. It is happening in ND as we converse about this. I don't care how big of an enclosure they make, it will never be fair chase and can only be considered immoral. There are just something that shouldn't be in a pen.

The thing I hate to see the most is the concentration of animals that they keep in these enclosures. The fencing is expensive as they require such a high stout fence to keep them in. Consequently they cram a large number of animals in a small enclosure, which I am sure offers a real wonderful quality of life for the animals.

Like adokken said, captive elk and deer ranches are guilty of rapidly spreading CWD around by transporting infected animals into areas where it didn't occur before. CWD was identified in an endemic area on the Wyoming/Colorado border in the late 60's. It might have been there forever. It never went any where until they started shipping Elk and deer all over. The area that has chronic wasting disease has low animal densities in the wild compared to some of the places it is now. Wisconsin for example has deer up the wazoo, and now that CWD is there they will never confine it. Too many animals to spread it rapidly before they can get a handle on it.

The story about the Louisiana guy going to Canada to raise cattle is kind of interesting. You wouldn't think a guy who was used to raising cattle in the southern temperate US would try and raise cattle up north in Canada. Considerable difference in techniques I would imagine, would seem to be a learn to swim fast or sink situation.


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## djleye (Nov 14, 2002)

Actually I am not so sure the downturn in velvet is due to a "glut". It actually is due to the prevalence of Viagra and now the other like drugs. Much cheaper to buy it in pill form than ground up elk velvet!!


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## nickle ditch (Aug 26, 2002)

I guess i should have posted this back in November when the thread was started. This is regarding the single case of mad cow disease in Canada.
On May 20 2003, a six year old angus beef cow(downer cow) was found to have mad cow disease. The farm was in Northern Alberta. The farmer's name was Marwyn Peaster, a former Mississippi catfish farmer, who was new to cattle. The result was the United States invoked a full ban on Canadian beef. Internationaly, russia, japan, mexico as well as others invoke a full ban. Around 80% of Canadian beef exports go south of the border. So you can imagine the impact this had on the Canadian cattle industry. That is why the CO made the comment on land access. I believe that Mr. Peaster has since moved back south.


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