Prominent Texas Breeder Charged As ‘Ghost Deer’ Investigation Grows

One of the largest deer-smuggling networks in the state’s history aimed to skirt chronic wasting disease-containment rules, officials say.

A whitetail deer walks across a field. (Scott Bauer/USDA)

A total of two dozen people have been charged with roughly 1,400 crimes so far in a sprawling investigation into a deer-smuggling operation that skirted chronic wasting disease containment rules, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said Thursday in a press release. The suspects include a recent board member of the Texas Deer Association, the most prominent group representing the state's deer breeding interests. 

The "ghost deer" investigation, which state wildlife officials first disclosed in February, has cast a harsh spotlight on Texas deer breeding, a small but lucrative corner of the hunting industry. Breeders typically pen-raise animals to control their genetics and maximize antler growth, then release bucks behind tall fences for paying hunters to shoot. 

A series of unexplained cases of chronic wasting disease, or CWD, have repeatedly appeared at deer breeding facilities since 2021. Like mad cow disease in cattle, CWD is a contagious disorder that causes proteins in the brain called “prions” to misfold, leading to death by neurodegeneration. Biologists widely regard CWD as the greatest threat facing the country’s deer herds. 

Texas wildlife officials have responded to the outbreak with strict containment rules to keep the disease from spreading from breeding pens and game ranches to free-ranging wild deer. State officials routinely kill all captive deer at breeding sites where CWD gains a foothold. Breeding facilities tied to CWD infections may also lose their ability to transport live deer. 

Wildlife officials say the suspects have gone to extraordinary lengths to evade containment measures. Suspects face allegations of falsifying death records for live deer, trafficking deer without permits and poaching deer to submit their lymph nodes in place of those from dead breeder deer for CWD tests. 

Ken Schlaudt, the owner of Rockin S Ranch, faces a state felony charge for tampering with government records, as does his ranch manager Bill Bowers. Both men allegedly submitted false information to the state in order “to facilitate illegal smuggling of white-tailed breeder deer,” the release says. They also face more than 100 misdemeanor charges for allegedly breaking laws related to deer breeding in Tom Green County, according to TPWD.

Schlaudt, who owns four breeding facilities as well as the game ranch, had until very recently served as the Region 1 Director for the Texas Deer Association. Schlaudt did not immediately respond to a request for comment. By early afternoon Schlaudt’s name had been removed from the TDA’s leadership page.

“If someone, whether they are a TDA member or not, is alleged to have violated the law, TDA believes that proven bad actors should be held accountable,” the group’s executive director, Chris Paddie, wrote in a statement to Public Domain.

Paddie highlighted that TDA had backed legislation this year that ratcheted up penalties for crimes that repeatedly surfaced in the ghost deer investigation, like illegally capturing deer, trafficking life deer and falsifying CWD tests.

“Every TDA board member has a duty to follow the Code of Ethics and policies of TDA, and any violation will be addressed accordingly by TDA leadership,” Paddie added.

The allegations of widespread evasion of containment rules tied to deer breeding has raised concerns among conservationists that deer smuggling could spread CWD to new areas, said Jenny Sanders, an east Texas landowner who has pushed for stricter regulation of the deer breeding industry. 

“Clearly all these illegal deer movements enhance the risk of spread of CWD,” Sanders told Public Domain. “In my mind, this is the face of the deer breeding industry. It's cutting corners, it's taking the easy way, instead of what the rest of Texas does — land stewardship, harvest management and ethical hunting.”

The investigation began in March of last year after a game warden pulled over an F-350 pulling a trailer in the east Texas town of Willis. The trailer contained seven live whitetails that the men said they had shot with tranquilizer darts. They were later convicted on charges including unauthorized possession of live whitetail deer, moving captive deer without a license and failure to conduct a live test for CWD. 

The investigation based on the arrest of those two men led to the uncovering of what TPWD officials describe as “one of the largest deer smuggling operations in Texas history.” With the charges against Schlaudt and Bowers, the case has come to a “possible conclusion,” according to the release. 

Suspects face charges in ongoing cases in 11 separate counties — Bandera, Bee, Brazoria, Duval, Edwards, Jim Wells, Live Oak, Montgomery, Tom Green, Travis and Webb. That broad area stretches from the Central Texas Hill Country to the U.S.-Mexico border in the south and to the Gulf Coast and Pineywoods in the east.

This post was updated on Aug. 14 to add comment from Texas Deer Association Executive Director Chris Paddie.