President's Letter - Winter 2008
Hello to all,
It was nice to see so many of you at the winter meeting. I hope everyone had a good time.
Plans are already under way for the annual meeting and fundraiser auction to be held at
Stoney Creek Inn at Wausau on April 11 – 12. This is our biggest event of the year and we
encourage everyone to participate. Each of you will be contacted for donations for auction
items and we hope you will consider taking part.
Once again Safe Capture will be returning with their seminar on chemical immobilization of
deer and elk. Reservations are required and you will find more information in this newsletter.
There are some important things going on across the country regarding the cervid industry,
none more important than in North Dakota where a relatively small group of individuals are
gaining support form animal rights groups to get a ballot initiative that would call for the
abolishment of all cervid farms and hunting ranches in that state. A few years ago this
happened in Montana and voters were subjected to a well-funded media attack on the
industry and subsequently voted to shut it down. The Montana game ranches were not
prepared for this fight and now are out of business.
It is going to take money to defeat this initiative in North Dakota. There are a lot of state
organizations watching this closely, including W.O.W. We cannot stand by and allow what
happened in Montana to spread across the country. We need to remain strong as an
association and be ready to do what we can to insure our right to raise our animals is never
taken away from us. We have been asked by the North Dakota Deer Ranchers Association
for financial support and this will be taken up at our next board meeting. As you can see,
your support for the fundraiser auction is more important than ever.
Closer to home, we have been meeting with DATCP regarding the 8% rule. We submitted a
detailed list of ways that a farm would not lose its status over the 8% rule. DATCP has been
receptive for the most part and more meetings will follow. Our responses to DATCP’s 8%
rule appear in this newsletter.
We have also testified at several hearings regarding proposed rule changes. We will let you
know what transpires.
I look forward to our annual meeting and hope to see you all there.
Bill Vyvyan