Idaho has 78 registered game farms, among which 15 sell "canned hunts" and one n the Chief Joseph game preserve near Rexburg n which had as many as 160 domesticated elk escape into the wild last month.

Wyoming has one game farm n the NX Bar Ranch near Sheridan, on the Montana border. According to Wyoming Game and Fish officials, it is a well-run operation that has never caused any trouble.

Commercial purposes of game farms are to raise meat, sell hunting that range from canned to fairly natural hunts, antler velvet as a natural food supplement or antlers in Far East traditional medicine.

Wyoming's only game farm was grandfathered under a 1975 law that banned the growth of a business plagued by disease outbreaks, escapes and controversy over canned hunts n where animals with trophy-sized antlers can be "hunted" within a confined area.

The law states: "There shall be no private ownership of live animals classified in this act as big or trophy game animals."

Brian MacCarty's family took the NX Bar Ranch, permitted for 2,000 head of elk on 23,000 acres northeast of Sheridan, into the game farm business over 30 years ago. Since then, the ranch has had several owners (including State Representative Allen O. Fordyce), but the MacCarty family has remained as ranch managers.

"They're very good to work with," said Allen Osterland, the local game warden. "They raise elk for hunting. In the past, there's been charges for access. Now, the operation is kept going for the owner's family, employees and some locals."

The ranch provides elk, bison, deer and antelope hunting according to various websites.

Osterland commented that the ranch breeds a pure strain of Rocky Mountain elk, and hasn't imported any new animals for a very long time.

"They don't work the elk annually, though they will do some artificial insemination this year," said Osterland. "Normally, the animals stay out in pasture. They behave very similar to wild elk."

Reached by telephone, MacCarty noted that his family has worked hard to meet all regulatory requirements from Wyoming Game and Fish.

Casper's Dick Sadler was one of three Wyoming legislators who pushed through the ban on game farms in the state.

Sadler said Rep. Fordyce made a bid to legalize game farming back in 1971. By 1973, Sadler and others had set up a study for the Game and Fish Department and Agriculture Department to look at the growing body of scientific literature on game farms.

"We toured one of the nation's best game farms in Chama, New Mexico," said Sadler, "then we drove to Craig, Colorado, to see one of the worst," a scrubby patch of dirt that sold canned hunts.

Wyoming legislators came back and passed a law outlawing game farms n 18-12 in the Senate, said Sadler. Rural residents were pretty mad about the new law, said Sadler, until a bunch of exotic species escaped from a Colorado game farm and crossed the Wyoming border near Cheyenne.

"That's when ranchers figured out that it was a law intended to protect them," said Sadler. "I haven't heard any complaints since."