Future Forum: Guilt, Innocence, and the Death Penalty 
History Lesson 
Which Side of the Fence Are You On?
All over Texas, ranchers are putting up eight-foot fences to keep their deer from roaming so they can charge more for hunting leases. Purists say shooting such deer doesn't amount to "fair chase." Biologists say penning them in causes disease. I say it's the best thing that could happen to the land.
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Besides allowing ranchers like Gene Riser to keep the family land intact, deer ranching provides an incentive to restore the land to its original state, with native trees, brush, plants, and grasses. And while it might seem that such fences would severely restrict the movement of other animals, in fact the barriers are surprisingly porous. Some 550 species, many of which are also hunted, pass over, under, or through them (mountain lions climb the fences, javelinas dig under them). For most of those animals, life is no worse because of the fences, and may even be a bit better on ranches where land is no longer cleared.
Still, wouldn't it be better if the ranch lands were turned to some other agricultural use? The answer depends on what your priorities are. Peach orchards, pecan groves, wine grapes, and other specialty crops are seemingly benign means of making money off the land. But they require extensive clearing of native brush and lots of water, fertilizers, and pesticides. While such cultivation has its place in the ecosystem, if all of Texas were farmed like that, the wildlife that lives off the land would not exist. Besides, there are just so many such businesses that the land, the water supply, and the greater economy can support.
The same goes for running goats and sheep. There is money to be made from them, although that economy may not be sustainable without government price supports. Worse, those livestock have a history of chewing all grasses and other small plants down to the root in times of drought, often ruining the land altogether, a legacy that is clearly visible on rocky spreads throughout the Edwards Plateau.
The second truth is that, whether we like it or not, hunting just isn't what it was in Davy Crockett's day. As noble as the concept of stalking animals across vast expanses of land for days on end may sound, that kind of hunting no longer really exists in Texas. People may remember the good old days when they took up their varmint guns and headed off into the nearest thicket. But they were likely hopping someone else's fence to do it. Since then, ranches have grown smaller and landowners have grown far more particular about who hunts on their land. The truth is that most people pay to hunt. The only question is, How good is the game on the lease?
The reality—again, whether we like it or not—is that modern hunting often means packaged three-day hunts, selecting game from a photo album or a video, agreeing on a price for a particular animal, then riding around in specialized vehicles or sitting in climate-controlled deer blinds near automated corn feeders and waiting to pull the trigger. Fenced hunting preserves are an integral part of this trend; they are where American hunting is going. I admit that the issue of disease caused by overcrowding confined herds makes me nervous. But after talking to experts on both sides, I am inclined to believe the advocates of high fences who say that as long as Parks and Wildlife is able to regulate the private deer-ranching business—especially those ranchers who put large numbers of deer on small spreads—disease can be kept to a minimum.
AT GENE RISER'S PLACE IN South Texas you can see how hunting on a high-fenced game ranch works, both as a business and as a sport. A few days after my visit, a party of three from Mississippi was due to arrive at his ranch for a three-day package hunt in which Riser would house them, feed them, and escort them to a blind where deer were known to feed. A later group of five from California chose to rattle antlers to attract their quarry. The hunters pay a flat fee for the experience and a bonus if one of the party bags one of the bigger bucks roaming the ranch. "A big, mature eight-point will cost $2,500," Riser says. (The size of a male deer's antlers is determined by the number of tips, or points, on its rack.) "Ten points will fetch $3,500. And if he's a wide and beautiful ten-point deer, with twenty-inch antlers, it's $5,000. This season I'm getting eight paid hunters averaging $3,000 apiece. I could get a lot more than that, but I'm holding off to raise more mature bucks." He can demand that price because, he says, "We supply them with a better product. If I don't have high quality, I can't charge a high price." He now makes $50,000 every year from his hunting and breeding businesses, though he says he could make more than that from breeding alone.
Riser pulls up to the heart of his breeding operation, a cluster of fenced-off areas containing some eighty fawns and a barn. He stops to pet one spindly legged animal on the head while cooing to her. He calls her Baby. In a nearby pen are breeding does and a buck. A nine-acre plot holds 25 yearling bucks. "Over there is a two-year old," he says, pointing to a robust-looking buck. "He's going to be one of the biggest on the ranch. He's typical of what is going on here. Deer are exploding in size, which is the result of genetics. But in this brush country, you also need age and food."
Riser's investment has been substantial. To build an eight-foot fence—the minimum to prevent whitetails from jumping over it—costs anywhere from $10,000 to $18,000 per mile. Barns and pens must be built. A biologist has to be retained to develop a management plan. This is the tricky part, because the number of deer per acre that a piece of land can support depends on the terrain, vegetation cover, and water sources. Breeding stock can cost up to $5,000 per deer, and buck semen for artificial insemination runs anywhere from $200 to $2,000 a straw. Nutritional feed must be purchased to supplement the normal diet.
After that the deer must be allowed to age. The average age of deer taken on low-fenced land in Texas is two years. If deer survive at least five years, or ideally, seven years for full maturity, they're more apt to grow the kind of antlers that translate into big money.
Riser defends the practice of guiding hunters to blinds and baiting the deer with corn—which some have likened to fishing in a barrel—as a necessary part of the business. "Without that, you won't see a deer," he says. Fewer than 240 head of deer roam his land, or fewer than one per ten acres. "When you're hunting behind a high fence, it doesn't make hunting easier. My deer will be nocturnal by the time they're three or four. They disappear. These guys are smart. You seen any today?"
I have not. But I also know that there are plenty of other deer ranchers, less ethical than Riser, who are fencing off smaller acreages, filling them with so many deer that the animals must be fed year-round to survive, and then arranging easy hunts. I do not approve of what they do. On balance, however—and though it goes against almost everything I used to think about hunting—I can see nothing harmful or unethical about what Gene Riser has done to his ranch. And it is probably the best thing that could have happened to this land.
IF YOU HANG AROUND HUNTERS long enough, you are certain to hear the term "deer queers." They represent a growing subgroup of deer hunters who eat, drink, and sleep trophy bucks. They're easy to pick out on the highway. Their pickups, SUVs, and sedans are the ones with the distinctive skull-and-antlers sticker in the rear window. The logo was designed by the most visible and influential of all deer queers, Jerry Johnston, a strapping middle-aged man with an abundant mane of white hair and a matching walrus mustache. Johnston is the founder and president of the Texas Trophy Hunters Association (TTHA) and the co-founder of the Texas Deer Association, which occupy separate offices in an anonymous San Antonio office park just inside Loop 410.
Johnston started Texas Trophy Hunters almost thirty years ago. But it has been only in the past five years that interest in trophy hunting—as opposed to plain old deer hunting—has blossomed, according to Johnston. This coincides with a seismic, generational shift in the sport: More and more hunters are now city dwellers with limited time who want instant gratification. The result is that hunting is now more often than not a highly organized activity run by professionals for enthusiasts who want the biggest possible deer in the least possible amount of time.
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