Many people think of hunting as a tradition—whether an age-old rite of passage or a back-to-nature test of ability—but a growing trend bleeds the practice dry of any custom or sport. An estimated 1,000 or more canned hunting operations in at least 28 states—businesses that often call themselves estate or high-fence hunting facilities, game ranches, or hunting preserves—now allow paying customers to shoot animals confined by fences. These numbers don't include facilities in other countries, nor one Texas outlet that allowed customers to hunt online.

Canned hunt customers shoot animals—many tame or habituated to people—for a fee, often in "no kill, no pay" arrangements. Many of the animals were bottle-fed, in the process losing their natural fear of people. Even animals raised in petting, roadside, and other zoos can end up in canned hunt operations. In many facilities, the animals are fed at regular times by familiar people or at bait stations and plots planted with food crops, where the shooters are waiting to take easy aim.

There is no sport in canned hunting: The animals cannot escape, and any element of chance or contest is eliminated. Many hunters and wildlife agency officials recognize that the practice is unethical, unsporting, and unfair. Even such groups as the Izaak Walton League and the Boone and Crockett Club oppose canned hunts.

Canned hunt customers are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to kill captive native wildlife—many bred specifically to have exaggerated "trophy" qualities—and nonnative (or exotic) animals. Usually, the more exotic the animal, the higher the price. And the sale of animals to canned hunt operations can be big business for private breeders, animal dealers, and zoos, knowingly or not. In fact, the practice encourages irresponsible breeding of captive exotic wildlife by creating a market for surplus animals.

Animals outside the fences face risks from canned hunts, too. The captive animals—often transported across state lines and clustered in concentrations that make disease transmission easy—may interact with native wildlife through the fences of the facilities. This can spread a variety of diseases to free-roaming populations, including chronic wasting disease. At the least, native wildlife can be displaced by the fences—often into harm's way.

Laws regulating canned hunting are sorely lacking. Only about two dozen states restrict the canned hunting of exotic animals, and native species have even fewer protections. While Congress is considering new legislation, S. 304/H.R. 1688, the Sportsmanship in Hunting Act of 2005, that would prohibit interstate commerce in exotic animals destined for canned hunts, no current federal laws—not even the Animal Welfare Act or the Endangered Species Act—govern the practice.

Please join us in combating canned hunts. Urge your legislators to support the Sportsmanship in Hunting Act. Click here to look up your legislators. And visit www.StopCannedHunts.org for more on how you can help us end this inhumane and unsporting practice. Acting together, we can stop drive-thru killing for good.