I can boil this whole debate down into two simple points:

(1) The state departments of fish and game hate game farms because they feel they should be solely in charge of controlling the harvest of elk in their states. High-fenced hunting takes money away from their departments, they think.

(2) Some so-called sportsmen hate domestic elk farms because they don’t like seeing majestic elk kept like cattle behind fences. Also, this issue comes down to pure jealousy. Some sportsman have hunted their entire lives and have yet to harvest a large bull elk. They are infuriated when they see someone pictured with a large, dead bull from a game farm. If the bull scores more than 300 points, these folks really get pissed.

Both the game departments and sportsmen use the disease element to scare the less educated hunters of the bunch. My feeling is if disease is a real threat let’s test every wild animal killed. Currently, all domestic animals are tested, so the real threat comes from the wild herds.