Chase pens are banned in all other parts of Canada & 41 U.S. states
TORONTO, Ontario––With wildlife advocates’ attention focused throughout the 2024 U.S. national election campaign on the failed initiative campaign to protect Colorado pumas and bobcats from hunting with hounds, a similar political battle has raged in Ontario province, Canada.
“I cannot get the thought out of my head that the Colorado houndsmen will unleash their attacks on mountain lions on November 24, 2024,” Animal Wellness Action president Wayne Pacelle told ANIMALS 24-7 after Colorado Proposition 127 died on November 5, 2024, attracting only 44% voter support.
The Ontario campaign, however, is still very much alive, and Americans are involved in it, albeit mostly on the wrong side of the issue.
Ontario premier & pit bull advocate Doug Ford pushed for more chase pens
The Ontario government, headed by pit bull advocate Doug Ford, “opened the application window for new train-and-trial pens on October 1, 2024, allowing individuals from both Canada and the U.S to apply until December 29, 2024,” reported Prisha Dev for Global News.
“Train-and-trial pens” are better known as “chase pens.”
Ford was authorized to invite applications to operate new chase pens by the grossly misleadingly named “Less Red Tape, Stronger Economy Act, 2023 (Bill 91),” passed in 2023.
At chase pens, explained Sandy Donald of Ontario Wildlife Rescue, “Foxes, coyotes, and wild rabbits are put in large wildlife death pens and then a pack of dogs is turned loose to hunt then down. This blood sport is considered entertainment,” similar, Donald alleged, to dogfighting and rooster fighting, both illegal in Ontario for more than 130 years.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“No other province allows this”
“The Sporting Dog Association,” claiming 33,000 members, “and the Ontario Federation of Anglers & Hunters,” with about 100,000 members, together representing less than 1% of the Ontario human population of 16 million, “lobbied the Ontario Government to expand this inhumane sport because they claim there is a growing demand,” Donald continued in a media release.
“Not only should no more licenses [for chase pens] be issued, but existing licenses should be cancelled. No other province in Canada allows this cruelty to wildlife,” Donald said.
“Must meet certain provincial standards”
Elaborated CBC News reporter Rebecca Zandbergen, on October 22, 2024, “For the first time in more than 25 years, Ontario is accepting applications from operators who want to create new fenced-in training facilities stocked with coyotes, foxes, rabbits and hares—specifically designed to teach dogs to pursue live animals and also to host competitions.
“Facility operators must meet certain provincial standards before they can open,” Zandbergen detailed.
“For instance, facilities housing coyotes must have a pen of at least 80 hectares [197 acres] for training purposes and 160 hectares [394 acres] if the pen is used to host competitions,” at which “judges award points to dogs for their ability to track and flush out animals.”
“Firearms are not permitted”
“The rules also lay out how many refuge areas must be included in each pen,” Zandbergen continued, “including culverts, dens and brush piles; when dogs are allowed in the pen, only during months when there is sufficient foliage cover, for example; and how many dogs are allowed in each fenced-in area at once.
“It depends on the size of the pen and the prey, but dozens of dogs can be inside simultaneously,” Zandbergen acknowledged.
“Firearms are not permitted inside the facility,” Zandbergen said, which means no one can quickly dispatch a wounded prey animal, before the dog pack tears the animal apart alive.
(Coyote Watch Canada photo)
“Not enough conservation officers to enforce rules”
“We are dead against it,” responded Lesley Sampson, executive director of Coyote Watch Canada, to Prisha Dev. “We know what happens within the captive fenced-in areas.
“You think in these big wild lands that anyone can regulate that rules are being followed?” Sampson asked.
“We didn’t have enough conservation officers to enforce rules before, so why does the Ford government think we will have enough now, when more (pens) are operating?”
Recalled Dev, “Back in 2023, two former Ontario conservation officers implored the province to reverse plans to expand these train and trial pens. Both officers stated that the official logbooks to track coyotes did not match up with the audits.”
“Bent to a small extremist group”
“The government has completely ignored what Ontarians want and don’t want,” continued Sampson. “They have basically bent to a small extremist group of individuals who want to have access to these really sickening, barbaric ways of making money.”
“According to the province,” Dev noted, “operators can source wildlife by purchasing animals from licensed trappers. Animals can also be bred in captivity.”
Thus chase pens are an additional revenue source for trappers, whose markets for fur pelts have long been dwindling.
Former Ontario prime minister tried to close chase pens
Former Ontario prime minister Mike Harris, who like Ford was a member of the Conservative Party, in 1997 “began phasing out ‘train-and-trial areas,’” Dev recounted.
“The province stopped licensing new pens and didn’t allow existing ones to be transferred to anyone else.
“At the time, there were 60 [chase pens] in Ontario. Today there are 22, according to the province, but that could soon change,” Dev said.
U.S. money
Whatever demand might exist for licensing new chase pens appears to come from the U.S., where nine states still permit their existence.
American investment and participation would be welcomed as a revenue source by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources & Forestry, where hunting license sales appear to have declined significantly since circa 1980, consistent with the U.S. long term trend.
There is currently no specific publicly listed ‘non-resident fee’ to operate a chase pen, or “dog train-and-trial area,” in Ontario, but the fee for Ontario residents is $100 per year.
As Ontario non-resident hunting licenses of all types are typically priced at five times the resident fee, an American chase pen operator would probably pay $500 per year for a permit to operate. Hunters using the facility would also each be required to have an Ontario small game license, costing $121.52.
Flack vs. video
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources & Forestry spokesperson Melissa Candelaria asserted that “Train and trial facilities prepare sporting dogs and their handlers for animal tracking and competitions while ensuring a safe environment that protects both dogs and wildlife.”
But the Toronto-based animal advocacy organization Animal Justice on August 22, 2023 released what it termed “disturbing new undercover footage that exposes the cruel truth about penned dog hunting in Ontario—where hunters cage terrified coyotes and use them as live bait for dogs to hunt.
“The caged animals run desperately for their lives, but have no way to escape,” Animal Justice described. “When they are caught, they are often maimed or killed by the dogs.
Animal Justice investigator got inside
The dogs forced to participate can also suffer from injuries or even death at these events,” which typically conclude with a melee very much resembling a pit bull fight, except that the fights occur outdoors, not in an enclosed arena, and multiple dogs rip into one coyote, fox, or rabbit.
“Our investigator went undercover and visited dog hunting pens to get a firsthand look into this secretive community,” Animal Justice continued.
“Our investigator witnessed the heartbreaking, frightened faces of coyotes who are forced to run for their lives, week after week. Participants often competed for cash prizes, spoke coldly of their animals, and threatened violence toward dogs who didn’t perform well.
“Hunting lobbyists defend penned dog hunting by denying that animals are ever hurt or killed in these pens,” Animal Justice said. “But this is false—the participants that our investigator spoke with were very clear that the dogs regularly catch, maim, and kill coyotes throughout the season.
“They explained that pen owners had to bring in new coyotes to stock the pens, because dogs catch them throughout the year.”
“Evolved to take place of dogfighting”
A similar debate erupted in Indiana in 2010.
“This has evolved to take the place of dogfighting, to satisfy these people who like blood sport,” charged Indiana Coyote Rescue Center founder CeAnn Lambert.
Indiana Department of Natural Resources allowed chase pens despite the weight of evidence against the decision, recognized by the department itself.
(See Indiana to allow chase pens.)
Indiana DNC ignored own internal report
“Running enclosures do not always provide for fair chase,” an Indiana Department of Natural Resources internal report recognized on October 26, 2010.
“The incidence of various diseases and parasites between captive and wild animals is increased within enclosures and poses a significant threat both to the health of the wild animal population and to humans,” the report continued.
“The raccoon strain of rabies was transferred to the mid-Atlantic States from a shipment of raccoons by private hunting clubs; coyote-variant canine rabies was transferred to a Florida pen from Texas,” the Indiana Department of Natural Resources internal report recited.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources internal report went on to identify 10 other serious diseases which also might be introduced by translocating coyotes and foxes to be hunted in chase pens.
Banned in three southern states
Nine Midwestern and Appalachian states still allow chase pens, but several Southern states where chase pens were once common now ban them.
The Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission banned hounding foxes and coyotes in fenced enclosures on September 1, 2010.
The similar practice of setting dogs on pigs in enclosures, also done in the name of teaching dogs to hunt, called “hog/dog rodeo,” was outlawed in Louisiana in 2004, and in Alabama and Mississippi in 2006.
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Hello! Thanks for highlighting our terrible Premier Doug Ford, a high school drop out and former drug dealer, amongst many other dubious accolades.
The State of Wisconsin which put Trump over the top and where I have recently left, has dozens of these ,Live Bait penning operations. There is almost NO oversight of these pens by the Wisconsin DNR which claims it does not have the staff or funds to manage. These pen owners are allowed to SELF report annually to the DNR. In 2004 our committee got very close to passing some humane restrictions. Last minute were shot down by George Meyer,former DNR chief who was a brother to Corky Meyer a big hounding Pen owner
Poor deluded me. I was taught, and have always thought, that we are supposed to evolve and improve, not backslide into the proverbial swamp. It seems that everything old is going to be new again, from the time of neanderthals, Roman gladiatorial bloodbaths, and animals providing “entertainment” for the ignorant, callous, and heartless.
Sharing with gratitude, anyway.