Senate leader holding up bill on fenced-in hunting preserves

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – The leader of the Indiana Senate is holding up a proposal that would legalize the state’s high-fenced deer-hunting preserves.

The House voted last month to approve a bill that sets up a licensing and inspection process for Indiana’s four current preserves where farm-raised deer are hunted.

Those preserves currently aren’t regulated in Indiana and the state appeals court has ruled the Department of Natural Resources overstepped its authority in trying to shut them down.

Senate President Pro Tem David Long says he’s keeping the proposal on hold as House and Senate members work in private on a possible compromise. Long has been an opponent of the fenced preserves for several years and says he doesn’t think simply legalizing the current ones is a permanent solution.