I am somewhat perplexed at students being taken to a deer farm or game farm, as the agricultural use of wildlife is, in principle, a very bad idea. Not only does selective breeding lead to genetic wreckage of the species, changing a lean, alert, clever animal into a fat, dull caricature of the species, but the very process of game farming transmits diseases from the domestic to the wild state. Another big elk ranch has just been "depopulated" in Ontario because of Tuberculosis (800 elk dead). It so happens that, historically, deer farming and Tuberculosis go hand in hand. See the TB epidemic on deer farms that swept through Alberta (2600 elk killed) to BC (three fallow deer farms), to Saskatchewan and Ontario. A huge embarrassment to the promoters of deer farms as this was predicted all along. Despite early recognition of the danger, the deadly Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) was transported by deer farming into Canada and is now spreading from Saskatchewan to Alberta. CWD is a sister disease to BSE, but with a very potent lateral transmission. We are one mutation away from a lethal, Alzheimer like disease that could be spread by - kissing! The federal promotion of game farming is the height of irresponsibility. Fortunately, a class action court case is in place and I expect to testify against Agriculture Canada. SARS is a game farm disease that spread from game-farmed civet cats to humans. HIV-1 jumped about 70 years ago from captive chimpanzees to humans. In short taking wildlife into captivity generates public health risk and the reason we have been spared so much of it is because we kept wildlife wild - by law! That was attacked by the NDP in Saskatchewan and by the Conservatives federally so that the predicted Tb epidemics and the unstoppable spread of CWD is courtesy those two parties and levels of government. We happen to have the best wildlife conservation system in the world and are envied for that by civilized people globally. We also have myopic and ignorant individuals promoting the destructive game ranching industry in Canada. By parading game farms as positive models, the SPCA is, unwittingly, joining the crusade against wildlife!

Sincerely,

Valerius Geist, PhD., P. Biol.
Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science