Steve Porter has spent three decades in law enforcement and more than thirty years building his whitetail herd in Kittson County, but he says the state of Minnesota is now trying to put him out of business over a fence. Porter objects to the requirement that he erect a second, state-mandated barrier around his 140-acre operation, Steve Porter's Trophy Whitetail. State rules allow license revocation and animal removal after more than one escape in six months or an uncorrected inspection deficiency.
Porter's standoff is the latest flashpoint in a years-long legal and political fight that effectively ended in January 2026, when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from the Minnesota Deer Farmers Association, according to AgWeb. The association had argued that residents have a constitutional right to farm and that the state's policies violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court had docketed the case in October 2025 before denying certiorari that January, per the court's own docket records.
A Once-Booming Industry Reduced to a Handful of Farms
Minnesota had roughly 600 deer farms at its peak, the AgWeb report notes. By September 2026, the number had fallen to around 80 statewide, with nine operations struggling to meet the state's double-fencing rules, according to Informed Choice reporting cited in Minnesota House of Representatives coverage. Minnesota is now the only state in the country with a total deer farm ban, phasing out every existing operation under legislation the state legislature passed in 2023.
Under that law, farms cannot be sold or transferred except once, to a biological child or immediate family member, and importation of deer into the state is subject to conditional rules and exceptions. Farmers are also barred from selling deer within Minnesota. The fencing mandate requires operators to choose one of four systems: two separate 8-foot fences spaced 4 feet apart, a mesh fence with holes no larger than 2-by-4 inches, a secondary barrier reaching at least 5 feet, or a multistrand 5,000-volt electric fence with battery backup and alarm. AgWeb reports the additional fencing can cost roughly $200,000 per farm.
Farmers Say the State Targeted Their Livelihoods
Stan Tvedt, 66, operates Open Trails Trophy Whitetails in Red Lake County and says his entire nest egg is tied up in the farm. “The state intentionally killed my farm,” Tvedt said, per AgWeb's reporting. Porter has been even more pointed, calling Minnesota's action “one of the biggest assaults on freedom and the constitution” he has witnessed, and arguing the state claims it can eliminate entire industries in the name of natural resources.
Porter bought his first deer in 1992 and has since sold breed stock across the country, building the herd behind his 140-acre operation without ever recording a case of Chronic Wasting Disease. He says he is fighting for what he considers a constitutional principle. Phillip Pulitzer, another figure in the fight documented by AgWeb, put the legal reality bluntly: the state has no fundamental right to farming.
Why State Officials Say the Fencing Rules Matter
A 2022 report to the Minnesota Legislature identified deer farms as a major factor in CWD spread, a risk also discussed in the Eighth Circuit's summary of the record via Justia Law. The 2023 statute tightened oversight and barred new farm registrations. The 2023 legislative package also transferred management authority over farmed white-tailed deer from the Board of Animal Health to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, while the Board retains responsibility for other farmed cervids, including elk.
Minnesota recorded its first captive elk case of CWD in Aitkin County in 2002, its first farmed whitetail case in Lac qui Parle County in 2006, and its first wild deer case in Olmsted County in 2010, according to AgWeb. CWD is an incurable, fatal disease affecting deer, elk, moose and reindeer, though it is not known to occur in humans or other animals. State officials argue the stakes go well beyond individual farms: Minnesota's wild white-tailed deer herd underpins an estimated $500 million annual hunting economy supported by roughly 500,000 licensed hunters harvesting 200,000 deer per year, according to a Crow Wing County report.
State Spending and a Legislative Pushback on Fencing
The Minnesota DNR spent $3,097,484 on CWD response, surveillance, diagnostic testing and culling operations during fiscal year 2025, spending that included partner payments to taxidermists for sample collection, wild carcass dumpsters and research initiatives, per the agency's own fiscal reporting. In January 2025, the DNR shifted its approach in southeastern Minnesota permit areas 646, 647 and 648 after disease prevalence there exceeded 5%, ending targeted culling in favor of expanded hunter harvests, according to Lakeland PBS. DNR research indicated that culling becomes ineffective at reducing disease prevalence once that threshold is crossed.
Not every state lawmaker supports the fencing crackdown. State Rep. John Burkel sponsored House File 40, which would remove the requirement to prevent physical contact between farmed and free-roaming deer, arguing the requirement imposes an unjust regulatory burden on farmers without scientific proof that disease spreads through incidental fence contact, according to Session Daily, the Minnesota House of Representatives' own news service. The DNR opposed the bill, maintaining that strict fencing barriers are vital to stopping CWD transmission between wild and captive herds.
With federal courts no longer an option, the fight over Minnesota's deer farms has shifted entirely to the state Capitol, where farmers like Porter and Tvedt are pressing lawmakers for relief even as regulators hold firm on the fencing rules they say protect the state's wild herds.
