'Canned' elk hunts in Idaho are burgeoning

BOISE — When John Martone spotted the huge bull elk on a forested slope, he knew he was looking at an awesome trophy.

Martone, an options trader from Seattle, brought down the animal with a 130-yard shot from a handgun. The bull's antlers were later measured at a whopping 374 and four-eighths points under the Safari Club International's scoring system.

Skill and luck had their part in the hunt, Martone said. But so did money.

He paid $8,000 to bag his trophy on the 1,200-acre Mountain View Elk Ranch, a private facility surrounded by a high fence where elk are bred to produce giant antlers and hunters are guaranteed the biggest elk they can afford.

"We have a lot of people who are just tired of hunting on public land and all they see is wolf tracks," said Ken Walters, owner of the ranch. "There's just too much competition out there and there aren't that many elk in the wild."

Martone's adventure was part of a burgeoning industry in Idaho that draws hunters from across the country. But while some call it the hunt of a lifetime, others say stalking farm-raised elk it isn't quite sporting and doesn't deserve to be called hunting.

Among hunting organizations, the Boone and Crockett Club condemns "the pursuit and killing of any big game animal kept in or released from captivity to be killed in an artificial or bogus 'hunting' situation." The Safari Club approves of canned hunts, as they are called, but frowns on hunting farms that guarantee a kill, saying that violates the principle of "fair chase" — that is, a hunt in which the animal being pursued has a sporting chance to escape.

The industry has also come under fire from those who fear the farm-raised elk could spread disease to wild herds. Last summer, up to 160 farm-raised elk escaped near Yellowstone National Park.

About 15 Idaho elk farms allow hunting. The practice ranges from letting an individual elk go in a small patch of woods to be shot, to maintaining large, rugged enclosures where elk can be hard to find. Price charts tell hunters exactly how much a trophy will cost, with deals sometimes made right before the kill. Bull elk that tally a rare 400 points typically cost about $10,000.

"What is fair chase?" said Ken Sedy, a retired deputy sheriff from Arlington, Wash., who paid $4,000 to shoot a bull that scored 298 points. "If you don't see a fence, it's just like hunting in the wild, but you're guaranteed to go home and eat elk meat."