Pass the Cervid Harvesting Preserves? No Thank You.

November 18, 2021

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• Game Farming
• WLA Archive

Wild Lands Advocate article by: Devon Earl, AWA Conservation Specialist

Click here for a pdf version of the article.

Hunt farms, what the Alberta Elk Commission and its lobbyist prefer to call “cervid harvesting preserves” (CHPs), are facilities where you can pay to shoot an animal that is held captive in an enclosure. “Cervid harvesting preserve” is a classic example of doublespeak, or language that deliberately obscures the meaning of words. It’s not obvious to anyone not in-the-know what a cervid is (an animal in the family Cervidae, such as elk or deer), and using the word “preserves” makes us think of some sort of jam. The reality of these CHPs is much more insidious, much more unethical, than what the name suggests.