A few weeks ago I wrote about the decision by the Alberta government not to allow canned hunts at private game farms (see Alberta Premier Outlines the Horrors of Canned Hunts). Alberta premier Ralph Klein said that shooting animals in confined, penned-in areas was “abhorrent.” Game farmers in Alberta now want to know why, if canned hunts are really so horrible, the government itself is engaged in the practice.
Serge Buy of the Canadian Cervid Council, which represents elk and deer ranchers, told the Edmonton Journal that Alberta currently sells hunting licenses so that people can shoot elk on fenced-in land own by the province.
The government responded that the difference is a matter of size — elk hunted at the Cooking Lake-Blackfoot Provincial Recreation area, for example, have 97 square kilometers to roam compared to game farms which are as small as just 100 hectares (roughly .6 square kilometers).
Source:
Elk ranchers renew debate over hunt farms: Province accused of contradictory policy. Dennis Hryciuk, The Edmonton Journal, September 7, 2002.