Probably my biggest hang-up with high-fences is that a land owner, owns that LAND not the native game on his land. If he fences his land, sealing native publically owned game inside, to me, that's not right. If he wants to buy deer from deer farms, fine, I don't care. This is why I am split on the fence issue. This whole wildfire thing throws another kink in the hose. If an issue like this comes up and the rancher loses animals that he "bought" but they couldn't get away, well, that's HIS loss. If the fire kills animals that belonged to the public, then it's everyones loss. (this may be a whole new can for a diff. thread)
In my state, and several others I've read about, if you are going to high fence in your property and take possession of wild deer contained therein the local game department comes out and does a herd number assessment and you are billed by the State for those deer. So you do have to buy them. Personally I'd love to have the resources to own a 1,000 acre high fence ranch. Yes it would be hunting, I wouldn't be hunting the corner with the deer trapped against the fence, I wouldn't be hand feeding them in the off season, they would be wild and free to roam. 1,000 acres of heavy forest/cutover/fields is a lot of land. The fence serves two purposes though, to keep deer in that I've allowed to reach a good age, and to keep other hunters out! All you QDM proponents are basically fantasizing about a giant fenced area, but your fences would be age restrictions. Be honest, the reason you want QDM (and Hey, I want it too) is so that the deer will get older and there will be more of them. That is basically what you are achieving with a High Fence except you're the only one that benifits not the whole county.
Just another thought for you anti-fence people. How many of you hunt funnels? Aren't they a form of restricting the deers movement, just like a fence? "But they're free to not use the funnel." you say. But the deers natural instincts and geographical features are a fence that forces it to use the funnel, eventually. Why else do we use them? Again, I'm talking about a lot of mixed cover in that fenced area and not a cowchute. The deer has just as much ability to avoid me as he does in the wild THE WAY I'D DO IT. The only thing I'm guaranteeing is that he won't be shot by my neighbor (unless my neighbor climbs the fence).
Of course it's all a moot point for me because I'll never own that much land and money. But it's fun to imagine.