I am still baffled by the knowledge that there are deer farms–places that deliberately raise deer for hunters to go and shoot–and that people want them in Tennessee. Now, I am not a hunter. But I do have a garden. So, I have to say, I am confused about why we would need places in Tennessee where deer are raised deliberately. Are there not already a shit-ton of deer in this state? Are they not already kind of a public nuisance? Have we not pretty much removed all apex predators from the area, thus rendering us deer’s only real threat?
People who aren’t even hunters kill deer in our state all the time, on accident, with their vehicles.
Help me out here, hunters. Why in the world would you need to canned hunt something so damn ubiquitous? Who would pay to hunt something they could shoot for free in their own vegetable garden?
Is it about the size and age of the animals? What? I’m not trying to be snarky. I literally cannot understand this enough to know if I should be in favor or oppose it.
Tiny Cat Pants 
I have no idea about the deer farms, but to anyone out there reading who likes to hunt squirrel but is lacking a place to do so? Come on over to my yard. Hunt all you like! I am overrun!
I think the only people who really want them in TN are the North American Deer Farmer’s Association. It would take a lot of marketing to get many hunters to pay for something like that when it’s so easy to find for free.
W., I am curious about who their customers would be. We looked at a house on Lickton Pike, almost bought it, too, where the owner just sat on his roof with a bow and arrow and had filled his house with deer heads.
If you live in a state where you can just sit on your roof and wait for them to walk by, it seems weird to think you’d pay to sit on someone else’s property and shoot their deer.
Hey, don’t knock it, B. Maybe some folks’ Manly Frontier Self-Images need a little boost.
I would imagine tourists. I’d also guess that it would be tourists who’d have a hard time managing to kill a deer if it weren’t more or less standing in front of them. It is weird.
Did we know that Dollar Bill Ketron is a co-sponsor of this bill?
Has Dollar Bill ever been on 840 (since it connects his district and all)? Has he ever looked out his back door or across the road, for that matter?
DEER, y’all.
The ones we have already wreak havoc during rut when they wander out onto the roads. I guess they keep jobs in Tennessee, though, for deputies writing up accident reports and auto-repair shops and chiropractors.
Good lord.
(I will henceforth stop yelling about Ketron. Enough people are doing it over at the local newspaper site for me. Sorry, B.)
I dunno. Maybe they’re planning on farming venison for non-hunters. There’d probably be a niche market for that.
Oooh, W, that’s an idea.
Justin, but tourists from where?! It’s not like there’s some part of the country without deer.
If it’s what W. postulates–that they’re looking to provide venison for non-hunters, I can support that. But if they’re looking to charge people to hunt what they can already hunt for free? That’s hilarious.
A lot of those farms exist for business-junket types of hunts where it’s not hunting set up for real, trained hunters. You know what I mean. The whole “let’s take a weekend, have a motivational speaker talk about blowing away the competition and then all go shoot at something.” it’s the hunting equivalent of those scuba diving schools in Hawaii that teach you Scuba in a saltwater pool.
What Justin and Katherine Coble said – It’s for the weekend yahoo crowd. People who want a trophy for their wall without actually having to learn how to hunt.
Also, at least here in New York, you have to be a certain distance away from any houses to fire off a shotgun (well, legally, anyway) – so that’s why you can’t just shoot the Bambi in your backyard.
Bow and arrow, dude. They never know what’s coming and the meat is unsullied by any adrenaline rush.
So, I talked to Jenci, who was at the committee meeting in which this was discussed. You can already canned-hunt deer in Tennessee. This legislation is just about deer farming. Some of the deer would be sold for meat and some would make their way into the canned-hunt market.
Wasn’t there a story about a country musican ‘hunting’ like this awhile back? I think it was a more dangerous animal, like a bear or something, and it was in a cage. But it’s the same kinda thing.
There are places like that for turkey hunting too. My old boss was a huge turkey hunter & went to one of those once (I think in Missouri or somewhere thereabouts). My co-worker and I made fun of the thought of him shooting turkeys while they were feeding for months.