In Nebraska you cannot fence in any "wild" deer or elk as it is against the law. Also, you cannot have deer behind a high fence in Nebraska, only exotics and elk and the elk are regulated by the Dept. of Agriculture as livestock. I believe this is similar to North Dakota and these animals are private property owned by someone like any livestock. The most compelling argument against high fence is the inhibiting of natural migration, disease, and escape resulting in comingling of wild and sort of domestic animals. There are high fence elk that are crossed with red stag for horn improvement and that is probably not something we would want in a wild elk herd.
From an ethics standpoint, there are pelnty of people that shoot tame deer all the time and say that's OK because it could have gotten away which is fine by me as long as it's legal. What we are talking about here is livestock that is owned by a private individual on private property and feeling the need to decide how he handles these animals including the slaughter of such animals. Sounds exactly like the HSUS or PETA to me. I have 3 buffalo scheduled to be slaughtered next week and I'm going to go out in the pasture and shoot them. If I said I'm hunting them does that make me bad? If I said I field slaughtering them does that make it OK? My fence is only 4 1/2 feet high and they can get out if they want so is this fair chase even though they will just stand there and let me shoot them like a lot of deer and elk do? Does the fact that this is a buffalo not an elk or deer make it OK when the elk are considered livestock and are held to much higher regulatory standards than buffalo or cattle? There are thousands of people that hunt enclosures and our society has created this demand. We live in a "the end justfies the means" country so telling somebody what they can do with their private property will only help the people that want to end all hunting.
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