Minnesota State Wire

A new report found that taxpayers paid more than $500,000 for deer farm buyouts over the past three years, including a total of $129,000 in Minnesota alone last year, eclipsing the prior two years combined.

The nation’s taxpayers paid over $510,000 to deer farmers in Minnesota and Wisconsin to wipe out captive herds infected with chronic wasting disease (CWD) from 2017-2019, according to records released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“The expense increased each year, growing to $270,956 last year,” according to The Star Tribune. “The Star Tribune obtained the payment data under the Freedom of Information Act, but the USDA declined to detail the cases or identify who received the money."

According to the data, Minnesota deer farmers received $93,616 in 2017, $20,195 in 2018 and $128,926 last year — the largest sum for either state in the three-year period. Deer farms in Wisconsin collected a total of $270,115 under the federal indemnity program for captive deer and elk over the same three years, records show. (There were no buyouts in Wisconsin in 2017.)

John Zanmiller, a lobbyist and spokesman for Minnesota deer hunting group the Whitetail Blufflands Association, said the USDA herd buyout program for infected deer farms is “like a dose of nasty medicine.”

Zanmiller told The Star Tribune that it’s critical to kill captive deer herds infected with the disease for the sake of the environment, but some hunters are wondering why it’s up to taxpayers to pick up the bill.

“Where’s the deer farmer’s contribution?” Zanmiller said. “The buyouts promote the idea of private wealth at public expense.”

Three hundred deer and elk farms are regulated by the Board of Animal Health within the State of Minnesota. This year, the agency has twice used the USDA’s CWD-related indemnity program to kill and test eight whitetails on a Pine County deer farm and four deer on a Wadena County farm, according to the agency.