supply and demand,and this has been going up and up every year for a long time. ranchers had to diversify to stay alive. and when they realized these little critters could fetch them good money if they had nice head gear they jumped on that horse and rode it for all it's worth. and it is not cheap or easy to maintain a ranch that has a big buck population or any population at all. for the most part i don't think the ranchers took advantage of the situation as much as they capitalized on the situation to save a lot of them from staying in the red year after year. now it has turned into big business and a lot of ranche's are purchased and turned into a game ranch. there is a lot of expense involved in this with bringing in new whitetail genetics,exotics,high fence,accomidations etc. so that's why a lot of these price's seem so high,but i would be hard pressed to think they are becoming millionaires from these venture's,unless it's when they sell the property.