Updated: 8/6/2008 2:29:20 PM
Supporters say it's like a safari close to home; opponents say it's animal cruelty.
However you feel about hunting preserves, the issue is taking center stage in Tennessee.
10News first reported on the Grainger County hunting preserve on Friday.
Clinch Mountain Hunting Adventures is a 64-acre preserve which allows hunters, for a fee, to take aim at exotic animals, including zebra, buffalo, various deer, and wild hogs.
"You just can't go anywhere and get one," owner Robert Haun said Friday. "Some people have phobias of flying or not being able to afford the expense to go across sea and get one, so we're bringing it to them."
Some neighbors have started a petition opposing the facility and asking TWRA to rethink its rules.
Now, the The Humane Society of the United States is stepping in, too.
"The Humane Society of the United States sees canned hunting as one of the most egregious wildlife abuses that there is," said Leighann McCollum, the state director for The Humane Society of the United States. "There's nothing about this that is defined by hunting, it violates every principal of fair chase, and we feel like the facilities need to be stopped."
On Tuesday, the Humane Society issued a statement and sent a letter to TWRA, asking the wildlife agency to stop issuing permits for the so-called "canned hunting" facilities.
TWRA Commissioner Boyce Magli said the issue is on the agenda for the commission's next meeting Aug. 20 at Pickwick Landing State Park.
"Certain members of the public and the news media are concerned about it. I think a number of hunters are concerned about it, and if they're concerned about it, we're certainly concerned about it," Magli said.
Right now, the agency will issue permits to facilities that are 20 acres or larger. The law was written around 20 years ago.
State Sen. Michael Williams, I-Maynardville, supports a review of the law.
"People in East Tennessee as well as the state of Tennessee are great sportsmen and a lot of good hunters, but I think they want it to be real, and I don't want these animals to be walking around, it'd be just like a man that raises cattle and then going out and shooting one if his cows," he said. "I mean, if they're not running, they're not trying to get away, where's the sport?"
Meanwhile, Haun says he is not concerned about the controversy.
He adds, even if the laws change, his facility will likely be grandfathered in.
