Got a response from Senator Crider today let me share!!!


Dear Greg,

Thank you for contacting me about hunting preserves or "canned hunting" I recently voted in committee to advance the hunting preserve bill. If I may explain. No one is the entire state has worked harder to stop this activity than I have. I spent 30 years of my professional life working as a conservation officer, and if you recall I was the one who convinced Senator Long to kill the bill last year.

So what changed? Well this issue has been ongoing for nearly 15 years. These preserves have been operating even though I and my counterparts at DNR enacted an administrative rule to outlaw them. The preserve owner immediately filed a court injunction, and this past fall the judge in Harrison County ruled that DNR had exceeded its authority because these animals were privately owned and not subject to DNR regulation.

Not only is that ruling disastrous for DNR but it left these pens to operate with NO regulation. If you dislike this activity as much as I do then the only option is to counteract the judges ruling and enact as strict a set of regulations as you can. I am being given the ability to put language in Senator Yoder's bill that will help us be as responsible as we can. The bill will also provide for the ability to charge the operators with Felony level violations and close them down if they break the laws set forth in the bill.

Let me be clear. I still detest this activity and it stands against all that I had stood for in the past. I came to the conclusion that this was the responsible thing to do and it is something that we can get passed in the House where they have routinely endorsed these pens. It is the proverbial "making lemonade out of lemons."

Sincerely,

Michael Crider