When TX regulators kill deer herds, ranchers are stuck with the bill. That may change.

When Texas whitetail deer breeders find a fatal disease in their herd, state Parks and Wildlife officials may soon show up with orders to contain the disease by killing the herd. For a rancher, the loss of an entire herd is devastating.

And the bill that comes later — requiring the rancher to pay for the costs of the killing operation — adds a bitter second blow.

But new legislation would ease the burden on breeders who are forced to depopulate after detecting Chronic Wasting Disease within their herds. The change would still allow the state to order herd killings, but would also allow the state to waive the costs of the culling.

“It definitely makes life a little easier for the guy that just received the death sentence, the worst news possible,” said John True, president of the Texas Deer Association and a partner in a whitetail deer ranch in North Texas.

Texas has hundreds of registered whitetail deer breeders, who raise the animals for trophy hunting. The state has regulations that require breeders to regularly test their animals for chronic wasting disease, a fatal deer-specific illness that can infect and kill deer with little forewarning. If a breeder discovers CWD in their herd, state officials enact what is known as a “herd plan” to attempt to contain the disease. And if the disease cannot be contained, then the state will order a “depopulation” — a culling of the entire herd.

That can mean the killing of hundreds of expensive animals, and the financial ruin of their rancher.

Under current policy, after state officials carry out the depopulation, they send an invoice to the breeder, who is responsible for reimbursing the state for the entire cost of the depopulation. The invoice can include everything from the salaries of the state workers involved to the cost of the bullets that killed their livestock.

“It’s just a heaping-on of bad news,” said Kevin Davis, the executive director of the Texas Deer Association.

John Silovksy, the wildlife division director for the state Parks and Wildlife Department, said the state has carried out a dozen depopulations since 2015. While the cost varies, Silovsky said the average depopulation costs $138 per deer. He said that more than half of breeders in Texas have 50 deer or fewer. Some farms, however, have hundreds, which means a depopulation invoice could total tens of thousands of dollars.

But the new bill — which originated as Senate Bill 1372 — would shift the cost of the depopulation to the state, so that deer breeders who are in good standing and have complied with other state regulations would not be charged if the state ordered a depopulation of their farm.

No ‘smoking gun’

The bill comes on the heels of a rash of CWD positives. In late March and early April, the Parks and Wildlife Department announced that five counties had discovered their first cases of CWD, all at deer breeding facilities.

It’s not clear how CWD spreads or why some animals catch it while others don’t. That means that even breeders who carefully follow state regulations around testing and transporting deer, may still find themselves with a CWD positive on their hands.

“As much as we don’t know about CWD, we can’t find, sometimes, the smoking gun,” said Silovsky, the Parks and Wildlife official. This bill “was just really an opportunity to not penalize somebody for really bad circumstances.”

The bill specifically states that only deer breeders who are in compliance with state regulations would have their ranch’s depopulation fees waived.

“These are simply facilities that drew a black bean and detected a disease that exists in free range deer and in breeder deer, and nobody really understands the origin,” said Davis, with the Texas Deer Association. “These guys just drew a black bean, if you will, and did not break the law.”

The bill has the support of breeders through the Texas Deer Association, as well as state officials through the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and some conservationists through the Texas Wildlife Association. The bill passed the Senate unanimously in early April, and has also passed through a House committee on its way to consideration by the House chamber.

‘Rewarding’ good actors

Justin Dreibelbis, the CEO of the Texas Wildlife Association, said he recognizes how difficult depopulation is on both the state officials carrying it out and the ranchers losing their livelihood. But in cases where depopulation is necessary to contain CWD, Dreibelbis said, his organization supports the approach.

But the CWD bill, Dreibelbis said, could help state officials maintain better relationships with deer breeders throughout the depopulation process.

“This bill essentially allows Parks and Wildlife to absorb that cost, which we believe helps remove the threat from the landscape quicker, with better landowner relations for the department, and ultimately we think that moves the needle as far as managing the disease,” Dreibelbis said.

Sen. Charles Perry, a Lubbock Republican and the author of the original Senate bill, said that the legislation would allow the state to recognize the efforts of deer breeders who follow the state’s testing and containment rules.

“We’re not changing regulations as much as we’re rewarding breeders … that have chose to play by the rules, that have done what has been asked of them at a tremendous cost,” Perry said. “This is a way for them to be acknowledged that they’re a partner and not an adversary.”

Davis and True, of the Texas Deer Association, said that deer breeders have been pushing for changes such as this one for years. Silovsky, the Parks and Wildlife official, said the department supports changes to policies as new research comes out about CWD. And Perry said that, over the last couple of years, there’s been a noticeable shift in the tone of the discussion between the state and the deer breeding industry.

“Over the years, that relationship has gotten better,” Perry said. “It’s been a completely different conversation in the last two or three years.”

A ‘contentious’ topic

Although the Senate Bill 1372 has so far sailed through the legislative process, CWD has long been a subject of fierce debate in Texas.

While CWD’s origin is not known, some conservationists and hunters have pointed the finger at deer breeders and blamed the industry for harboring and spreading the disease. Deer breeders, in response, have said that CWD is naturally occurring and is simply found in farmed deer more frequently because those animals are more closely monitored and more frequently tested.

In addition to finger-pointing over the origin of CWD, the state’s ability to order the killing of farm animals – which is legally permissible with whitetail deer because they are technically wild animals even if they were born and raised on a farm – has also triggered heated fights over private property rights.

In one case, as the Star-Telegram previously reported, a whitetail deer breeder outside of Dallas has decided to sue the state rather than allow state workers to depopulate his ranch in the wake of a CWD positive. That case is still winding through the state court system.

In order to become law, the CWD bill still has to pass the House chamber with a majority vote and then be signed by Gov. Greg Abbott. The chair of the House committee that most recently approved the bill, Rep. Trent Ashby, said in an emailed statement that he was pleased to see the bill making its way through the legislature.

“After several contentious sessions, I’m pleased that we were able to reach a compromise to address the issue of chronic wasting disease,” the statement said. “I look forward to getting this bill through the House and onto the Governor’s desk for final approval.”