How Hunting Preserves Work

While it'­s never been argued that hunting is necessarily "easy," let's take a look at the obvious benefits of a preserve hunt first.

With many hunting preserves, you can bag your rooster, then head to dinner while facility staff cleans the catch. That's a nice perk for those sportsmen who don't like the hassle of clean-up. Other perks at these preserves include arranged transportation, lodging and meals for one price [source: Thoms].

If hunting isn't your thing, preserves still offer a good opportunity to spend time with friends and family, as these private lands are often spread out -- some as large as 10,000 acres (4,047 hectares) or more [source: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission]. And they offer other increasingly rare amenities, according to Jim Trinklein of the Michigan Association of Gamebird Breeders and Hunting Preserves. Hiking, bird watching and camping opportunities all exist on these lands.

And speaking of budget, preserves add $1.6 billion to the United States economy. They teach gun control skills to youth and work to instill a sense of stewardship and pride in natural lands [source: North American Gamebird Association].

So if preserves are so great for the hunters, what about the hunted? In the next section, we'll look at migration and how preserves and preservationists can offer feeding and resting grounds for animals on their annual migrations.

As land disappears, the wildlife goes with it. For the 10,000 sandhill cranes that stop at Indiana's Jasper-Pulaski Wildlife Area on their migratory path, the value of this ­hunting preserve turned wildlife area cannot be argued. Designated as a gamefarm and game preserve in the 1930s, Jasper-Pulaski now maintains more than 8,000 acres (3,237.6 hectares) of wildlife habitat for these and other­ migratory animals [source: Indiana Department of Natural Resources]. For the cranes, resting grounds such as Jasper-Pulaski or Wyoming's Greater Yellowstone area are crucial to the species' survival.

­Migration is nature's way of ensuring species' survival, providing the necessary shelter and access to food during all seasons. Preserves located on migration ground see many animals come through during the migration, which allows hunters a greater opportunity to shoot a prize specimen.

One of the arguments against hunting preserves, however, is that this opportunity is nothing more than a "canned hunt," as many private hunting lands uses fences to contain prey [source: Gerstenzang]. It was during a private hunt that Vice President Dick Cheney wounded a fellow hunter in 2006, drawing wide-spread criticism to the sport.

Preservations can also be used for game privatization, which has the hunting community torn. Read on to discover why.

Privatization. We're used to it in health care, but it's not just about hospitals. Even hunters fa­ce the crunch of private ownership of lands and game.

­In 2001, more than half of the people hunting in the U.S. did so on private land. According to Jay Strangis, editor of Peterson's BowHunting magazine, this may be the only future for hunters, as private land becomes the only means for the sport [source: Strangis].

At the Crex Meadows Wildlife Area in Wisconsin, only 2,400 (971.2 hectares) of the of the Meadows' 30,000 acres (12,140.6 hectares) is closed to hunters. With campsites, wildlife classes and other recreation, this example of privatization comes at a minimal price. As with many other state lands, a park sticker is required to access the lands. Prices range from $5 for a one-hour pass to $35 for an annual out-of-state permit. For other lands, like those set up exclusively for hunting or privately owned family farms, making the decision to charge a fee for a guide serve can be troubling.

If privatization is one "affliction" of the sport, what others exist? Read on to learn about disease on hunting preserves.

­Survival of the fittest is nature's way of weeding out the weak from the strong, but what happe­ns when otherwise healthy animals come in contact with weak or diseased animals? It happens during migration, and this shifting of populations prevents inbreeding, but it can also contribute to the spread of disease among new populations [source: Montana Conservation Science Institute]. In this section, we'll look at hunting preserves and disease among game.

Chronic Wasting Disease, which is a fatal wasting syndrome found in deer and elk, affects infected animals with tremors and weight loss and is known as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, or TSE [source: Belay]. It's also similar to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease [source: McCombie]. The disease is extremely contagious within captive elk or deer, and while it has been found in captive herds since the '60s and in the wild since the '80s, several states including Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska have had CWD in endemic proportions [source: Belay] .

As for birds, which also play a large role in the spread of disease, chief among them West Nile Virus, disease transmission is of increasing concern as wild populations diminish and farm-raised birds increase in number [source: Reed, Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences].

No matter how you feel about them, keep in mind that game preserves offer much of the same beauty found in the wild, and in some cases can keep the view from your window as wide open as it was before contractors moved in across the street.