Our elk industry is being linked with the cattle industry. When there was a payout with compensation for BSE, the cattle industry got a payout and the elk were linked in with them. The program started in August. It started at 45¢ a pound for the cervid industry to a maximum of $125 a carcass when you butchered it. For me, with farming, I'm busy through the summer. You had to have your animals slaughtered before December 15, so we butchered about 150 mature animals and we put in our forms and sent them in, and they said the prices in the cattle industry had risen a little bit, so compensation had dropped. We ended up with 9¢ a pound for our elk. It was 45¢ in August, and when we slaughtered and got into the program, we ended up with 9¢ a pound, which was about $24 an animal. We had to have an abattoir do it, to register the weights and everything. It cost us $35 an animal to butcher them, $12 to verify the weight, and we got $29 an animal, because they averaged out around 325 pounds. They're not like beef cattle, which are heavier.
This is what I'm saying. We just want recognition. If we're going to be linked under agriculture with the cattle industry, we want to play with the same fairness as the cattle industry. We don't want handouts; we just want a little help to get our markets back. Once we get our markets back, we can survive. It was a good industry.