Substitute for Senate Bill 37 violates Proposal G, call your senator today
Senate Bill 37, sponsored by Sen. Curt Vanderwall (R-Ludington), had a hearing today in the Senate Natural Resources Committee. A proposed substitute for Senate Bill 37 was entertained; but ultimately, was not voted on. Both the original and substitute bill would restrict the Natural Resources Commission’s ability to manage our deer herd effectively in the face of disease.
Regardless of how you feel about baiting and feeding of deer, we ask that you stand up to say that the premise of this legislation would set a dangerous precedent to open the door for legislative micro-management of our natural resources. MUCC has long stood for these decisions to be in the hands of the NRC, guided by science, rather than what is politically popular.
The amendment that has been discussed specifically limits the Natural Resources Commission to only issuing no-baiting/feeding orders within a 10-mile radius of a CWD-positive or bTB-positive wild deer discovery. This would bar them from action based on positives in a high-fence captive deer facility, ignore the research currently being conducted to track deer movements to help refine management tactics, and ultimately create a confusing patchwork of regulations across the state.
MUCC has opposed the baiting and recreational feeding of white-tailed deer, with the exception of supplemental feeding by permit during particularly hard winters, since the early 2000s due to member-driven policy.
The resounding recommendation from the science community, Michigan’s CWD Workgroup and biologists across the nation has been to call a timeout on baiting and feeding in the face of disease.
Furthermore, this substitute would take away authority from the NRC that was provided to them in Proposal G — a ballot referendum in 1996 that granted the NRC authority to regulate the taking of game in Michigan and that sound science must be used to determine those regulations.
MUCC needs you to call your state senator today and voice your opposition to SB 37 and proposed substitutes. You can find your senator here.
Senate Bill 37, sponsored by Sen. Curt Vanderwall (R-Ludington) is the Hunter’s voice being shouted fromt he tree tops! The MUCC is blind sided by Bias opinion and irregular science.
I know I speak for many northern hunters when we voice our opposition to the MUCC’s opposition to the Senate Bill 37!!
Baiting Ban has NOT improved the odds of preventing or slowing the spread of CWD.
CWD is caused by a Spiroplasma Bacterium. Until the MUCC and NCR and DNR realize this, their continued agenda towards fighting CWD will continue the 50+ years of failure!
No bait is a big mistake might not feel it at first but people will soon with less kills less license sales and more collisions with deer not to mention the insurance companies jacking their premiums up to pay for the accidents involving deer. Small companies who look forward to the sales of bait every year are going to suffer also and if you think banning bait is going to stop deer contact you are definitely not in the loop.
Deer are social animals and are close to each other naturally
Baiting does NOT MAKE DEER CLOSER TOGETHER
DERR ARE SOCIAL ANIMALS TO BEGIN WITH
DNR proving again that the letters “DNR” STAND FOR Do Nothing Right
with this ban the average northern hunter has a slim chance of tagging a deer. the small amounts of bait we use keeps the deer dispersed without it they will all congregate at food lots causing the CWD to spread much faster. Timothy J. Grocki
No baiting is a bad choice the deer will still eat together under apple trees and in farm fields and if it’s private property why can’t you bait its my property im not forcing the deer to cometo the bait hell im not even forcing them to be on my property so much for being a free country
the idea in M ICHIGAN is to kill deer less bait less kill. there are many problems wiith the dnr like crazy long gun seasons and too many of them .Basically we need to look at other states in the Midwest , Indiana doesn’t alow baiting and Michigan hunters flock to Indiana to buy an expensive license to get a chance at a trophy buck they will never see in Michigan. Ohio allows baiting and they also have huge bucks but theyre seasons are short and the deer have a chance to get old.The question you should ask is why do hunters want to hunt elsewhere at great expense .From my personal experience hunting the mid western states most don’t bait and it really doesn’t matter. The deer are bigger older and the mature bucks are plentifull..I have killed many deer in our state but never over bait which is my choice, but I see no reason to make it a crime. We here of declining numbers of hunters , some people don’t have a lot of time to hunt so bait does make it easy to kill does and young bucks , which seems to be the goal.my opinion is a short one week gun season bait all you want that week. Most deer get killed the first few days of gun season problem solved,most of the deer coming to bait are now dead so no cwd..Since no one really knows what causes cwd and how to fix it , why try things that haven’t worked in the past.CWD is here its probably been here longer than we think. More deer die from ehd than cwd , which is caused by midge bites ,so should we kill all the insects? So show me a cured deer or a formula that has worked in the past and not letting people have the choice to bait may make sense ,but nobody can do that.
I prefer no baiting! The deer will move around if their not filling up at bait stations!
Deer are social animals. When you see them feeding in groups some may be spread out in a field, but most will be together. This comes from eons of time so they may detect and flee from predators. Being social they will groom each other, that means licking, and all areas have licking branches. Moving a small amount of a food source from a large area to in front of a stand or blind and spreading it out, I certainly cannot see how this can promote the spread of a disease that already exists in the soil. It has not been proven to be eradicated out west for over fifty years with or without baiting. Until a way is found to kill the protein that causes CWD it will be found.
No baiting for over 25 yrs in area 452 has NOT contained or stopped tb. It’s still here. So tell me..what’s the sound science behind the no baiting here?
I am disabled and cannot walk to the woods chasing deer no more as of this year I will no longer be purchasing a license to deer hunt they tell you there’s a disability law where you can still bait but it’s so confusing I wouldn’t take the chance Hunter of 35 years will no longer be purchasing license sorry