Magic Valley resident David Cox describes himself as just another farmer - although his main crop is antlers, not animals.
"I would like it if wild animal farms were considered as legitimate agricultural businesses," Cox said.His 10-acre plot is ringed by 9-foot-tall electric fences and hidden by a grove of trees. He keeps 18 fallow deer and four elk on his small farm and every summer, cuts "velvet" antlers from many of the animals. There's a lively market in the Far East for wafers made from ground-up antlers.
Cox also sells the animals for slaughter.
His farm is one of 30 commercial wild animal farms licensed by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
Each year, more Idaho farmers and ranchers seek permits to keep deer and elk because of the lucrative antler trade, said Steve Agte, regional conservation officer at Jerome.
Early this summer, Cox harvested the velvet antlers of his lone bull elk, for the third year. He figures to get $900 for the elk antlers at $80 per pound.
That's much better than the price for antlers from fallow deer. Their price has fallen from $100 per pound three years ago to $20 per pound now, Cox said.
He plans to sell most of his deer and concentrate on elk, even through the 3-foot high fallow deer produce tasty meat and grow large antlers. He said he will keep a few in case their antler values rise.
Some animal-rights groups complained about the antler harvest process after a New Mexico newspaper printed pictures last year of an elk bleeding from antler stumps.
But Cox said his harvest methods are humane and he does not "ax" the antlers.
"That's not me," he said. "We tranquilize the animal and wait until he's completely unconscious before we put a tourniquet on the base of the antler and another tourniquet, made of dental floss, is placed on the antler just below where the antler is taken."
Antlers are cut off with a cable saw and Cox said the animals lose just a few drops of blood in a process that takes just seconds.
He ships antlers to a Montana broker, who sends them to Australia or New Zealand, where the price almost triples before they are processed.
He said the final product is a very expensive wafer eaten by Korean and Taiwanese men to enhance their sexual performance. Wafers from velvet antlers are regarded as more potent than those from mature antlers.
Cox said he sampled an antler wafer once. It tasted like a potato chip, he said, but he detected none of its promised effects.