By BRIAN LEAHY
of The Gazette
The future of Bob Konopacky's Deep Woods Deer and Elk Preserve rides on the health of two whitetail does confined to a half-acre pen in the 240-acre game farm.
Both does were in a shipment of four does Konopacky received last January from another Portage County game farm, where a buck later died from chronic wasting disease.
"The deer were, for a month and a half, possibly exposed to that diseased buck," Konopacky said.
As a result, state officials have quarantined Konopacky's town of Grant game farm.
One of the four does died shortly after arriving at his farm, most likely from shipping stress, Konopacky said. A second died in June, but Konopacky didn't find its carcass in time for tests to be conducted on it.
"I would suspect it died of pneumonia, but you don't know for sure," Konopacky said.
The state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection will decide in January whether it wants the two remaining does killed so they can be tested for CWD.
"If they test positive then chances are everything else in this place is going to get killed, too," Konopacky said.
Konopacky has between 210 and 215 whitetails on the farm and 40 elk. He and his father, Bob Sr., started the game farm in 1996.
"I've been working on genetics for the past couple of years and looking at all the work I've put into this place, it would be a little hard to take (having the animals all killed)," Konopacky said.
The Konopacky family bought the property in 1965. Konopacky ran a beef operation on the farm for about a dozen years. It then sat fallow until the game farm operation began in 1996.
Konopacky offers hunts in an 80-acre enclosure in the farm. Customers can select the individual animal they want to hunt or tell Konopacky what class buck they want. He charges on a scale of $185 per antler point for bucks up to a 12-point deer. For bucks with antlers having more than 12 points, he charges on a scale based on their Boone and Crockett score.
Konopacky balks at the suggestion that hunting a deer in the 80-acre preserve is "like shooting fish in a barrel."
"One fellow last year never did get his deer out of here," Konopacky said while driving through the hunt area, which is heavily wooded with pines, scrub oaks and thick brush.
To prove his point on how hard deer are to see in the 80-acre enclosure, Konopacky drove this reporter around hunting the preserve to see if they could spot two does he knew were inside the fence. The deer weren't spotted from his van, however, wildlife, like three turkeys, were.
Last year he had 10 hunts on his preserve. Of those hunters, four had physical disabilities he was able to accommodate by driving them to their stands. Most of the hunters were local, but others traveled from Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Minnesota.
Konopacky has had three hunts so far this year and expects to end up with six hunts.
As part of the quarantine, any deer that is harvested or dies on his farm must be taken to a local veterinarian's office so the brain stem, lymph nodes in the neck and brain stem can be removed and sent to a laboratory for CWD testing. The procedure costs $35.
Antlers reach their full-growth potential when the buck is about 5-1/2 to 6-1/2 years old, Konopacky said. He only has a few bucks in that age group. Sixteen bucks are 3-1/2 years old. He also has large age classes of younger bucks.
"I've really got about two or more years to go before I can make a living off this place," he said.
He works about six months of the year as a carpenter for Kodak.
"If there's not a enough coming in, then I use the Kodak money," he said.
Konopacky sells other products from the farm besides the hunt.
"It's not just the hunt," he said. "It's anyway a guy can stay in business."
He sells the antlers, which craftsmen will turn into chandeliers. A shipment of 200 pounds next week will bring in about $1,500. He also sells hides and capes. Deer and elk tails can be sold to people making bucktails for muskie fishing. Elk have two ivory teeth, which can be used for jewelry. He is also looking at selling antler velvet from bull elk, which is an ingredient in some Asian health products.
Konopacky has sold some elk and deer for meat, but he would like to see that market grow more. When he reaches his goal of 500 deer on the farm, he will need to dispose of doe fawns born each year. His plan is to sell those deer for venison, a low-fat meat that is healthier for people to eat than beef.
"There's a lot of people out there with heart disease and other diseases where they can't eat high-fat meat," Konopacky said. "Well, this is a good alternative."
Also in the works is attracting hunters from Germany. His daughter has lived in Germany and is assisting him with making overseas contacts. That plan includes building two cabins on the property, one for customers and another for an office and small living quarters.
Konopacky already has the logs and lumber for the cabin. He got the wood from clearing storm-downed trees on the two miles of road traversing the farm and used a portable sawmill to make the boards.
Other work on the farm includes checking the electric fence around the perimeter of the farm daily, feeding the animals grain and potatoes and checking for dead deer so they can be promptly tested.
Game farmers typically lose between 5 and 10 percent of their animals each year, through disease and predation, Konopacky said. He has lost animals to pneumonia and blue tongue, plus coyotes and other predators killed about one-half of his fawn crop this summer.
"I had a disaster with those things," Konopacky said about the coyotes.