It’s been 25 years since Montana closed its doors to the bespoke industry of hunting fenced-in trophy animals on private reserves, despite the state’s well-publicized image as a sportsman’s paradise.

A handful of game farms, where wild animals like deer, elk and sheep are bred and sold like livestock, are still scattered across the state. But they’ve been grandfathered in, dwindling since the passage in 2000 of a ballot initiative banning new ones and prohibiting fee hunting on those that remained.

Ultimately passing by just 4 percentage points, Initiative 143 was a bitterly fought political contest that attracted national attention, as Montanans became perhaps the first state in the country to put a halt to the “alternative livestock” industry. Central to the issue was the potential to

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