When it comes to regulating privately owned elk and deer, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife deserves no presumption of good faith. ODFWs lengthy and expensive pursuit of Clark Couchs Madras hunting ranch took care of that. So expect a few people to protest next month, when the departments rule-making commission considers a handful of new elk-ranching regulations. Has the Ahab of state agencies found itself a new white whale?

The most notable of these new rules would require a double line of fencing between privately owned elk (and some species of deer) and the outside world. This rule, the state argues, is needed to protect wild elk and deer from diseases that can be communicated through a single fence. A more unobjectionable purpose is hard to imagine. Given the economic and lifestyle value of the state’s wild critters, Oregonians have an interest in keeping them healthy. If that interest cannot be served without the installation of miles of double-fencing, there’s nothing wrong with telling elk ranchers to start digging post holes.

But is double-fencing really necessary? It would be if elk ranches were comparative petri dishes. But that doesn’t seem to be the case now, and it’s even less likely to be the case in the future. The proposed rules would continue the existing ban on the importation of live elk, so diseases wouldn’t be likely to invade Oregon in that fashion. The new rules would allow the importation of embryonic elk, and these could carry diseases. But the odds of that are very low, according to Bruce Eddy, district manager for the Grande Ronde watershed. Just in case, however, elk ranchers would have to submit to a beefed-up regime of disease testing. All captive elk that kick the bucket would have to be tested for diseases within 24 hours, regardless of the actual cause of death. Should an elk stumble over a 100-foot cliff and land on its head, the owner would still have to test what’s left of the animal.

Given the importation and testing rules, it’s hard to imagine diseases spreading from captive elk to wild elk, even if the creatures spent all day rubbing noses through the fence. It’s much easier to imagine such diseases spreading from completely unregulated and unfenced wild elk to captive elk. Yet some ranch owners maintain only a single fence. Why? Because they’re rational: You could count the number of deer and elk diagnosed with chronic wasting disease in Oregon on the fingers of a single elephant.

Nevertheless, the state might soon require elk ranchers to install fencing that would cost an estimated $25,000 per mile. That number, the state concedes, “assumes simple, flat terrain without any hills, rocky land, or waterways.” So, if your elk ranch sits on a soccer field, that $25,000-per-mile figure is for you. For everyone else, prepare to dig deep.

Such a requirement could cripple elk ranches. Even the state recognizes this, noting that the costs of fencing — even with a three-year phase-in period — “are still quite high in relation to the business operations of many licensees.” Given that fact, the state must offer a better justification for double-fencing than its airy claim that an outbreak of chronic wasting disease could devastate wildlife and harm businesses that cater to hunters. Of course it would. But such an outbreak could have a number of causes, and elk ranches, from a risk perspective, would probably fall near the bottom of the list.

Without compelling evidence to back it up, the double-fence requirement looks less like a rational and necessary piece of public policy than a continuation of the state’s nutty crusade against privately owned game species. No wonder some elk ranchers suspect, as one explained to a Bulletin reporter recently, that “all these rules are just a way to put us out of business.”