Florida busts chase pens

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2009:

FORT WALTON BEACH–The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation
Commission in mid-November 2009 concluded ten months of both
undercover and aerial surveillance of unlicensed chase pens by
charging 12 people with buying and possessing live foxes and coyotes
without having permits, and issuing citations to 46 people who
brought dogs to pursue the foxes and coyotes.
There are six legal chase pens left in Florida, where dogs
may be released to harass and attack foxes and coyotes who cannot
escape from the pens, though they may have hiding places. The foxes
and coyotes must be vaccinated against rabies, and must come from
rabies-free states.

The owner of a seventh formerly legal chase pen surrendered
his permit to operate in August 2009, after he was found in illegal
possession of coyotes. That facility had been extensively exposed by
brother and sister Jeremy Maines and Christin Tank at
<http://endthehunt.org>. Maines and Tank called chase pens a legal
form of dogfighting.
“Over the past year, we have received numerous complaints
regarding the enclosures,” acknowledged Florida Fish & Wildlife
Conservation Commission chair Rodney Barreto. “These investigations
are something we will weigh when we make decisions about the future
operation of these enclosures.”