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Baiting in the Tb Zone

October 13th, 2011

Just when we thought the great bait debate was over in Michigan, there is a new proposed baiting order that would restore baiting to Presque Isle County and southern townships in Iosco County. Baiting would continue to be banned in Alcona, Alpena, Montmorency, and Oscoda Counties as well as the northern tier of townships in Iosco County (Oscoda, Plainfield, Wilber, AuSable, Baldwin).

Political and public pressure certainly had a hand in bringing this late proposal forward. However, giving credence to this proposal is the decision by the USDA (upon request by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development) to shrink what they consider the core infected area (Modified Accredited Zone) to only the four counties, which is the area where there are different and more stringent regulations for movements and disease testing in cattle.

Click here for the memo and draft Wildlife Conservation Order Amendment proposed.

This is scheduled for possible approval at the November 10 meeting of the NRC, so don’t start baiting just yet. And if you live or hunt in this area and are displeased with this possible action, please let the NRC and your State Representative and State Senator know about it because I can only assume they aren’t hearing much from your point of view.

  • Jon sheppard

    Unbelievable lets waste more money! Let the biologists determine the need for restrictions not the idiots!
    Jon Sheppard

  • Sbreniser

    I’d like to see the state give the man power to the DNR to back the law. If we are going to bait, fine. But someone has to be on the roads and look out for those baiting over 2 gallon. Or someone out there to stop baiting. When I find bait 2 feet high and 5 feet accross and some tied in a grocery bag with a beer can on top, someone not doing there job. Or can’t, due to staffing. I enjoy 2 gallon of bait scatterd out on a run way, to slow em down so I can watch them. Otherwise the hunt can be over in 2 minutes.

  • Captdoug69

    Open the whole State up to baiting! The TB area was not brought upon us by bad deer. It was cows and farmers not monitoring their herd. Now the State and farmers org’s want to kill all the deer in the TB area to stop the spred. The deer numbers are down so far in the TB area hunting proceeds have to be way down. Also baiting is going on in a huge way anyway. Is this another cry wolf like CWD was. How foolish to think affected deer know boundries. Like they won’t cross into unrestricted counties. Come on people be reasonable and stop crying because you don’t like someone else’s priorities. Let’s get back to hunting without being afraid of what someone think’s.

  • 30yr hunter

    Set up rules for baiting. Sell a baiting license. Collect the money that seems to be what Lansing is about is it not MONEY. We can use the money to feed those life time bridge card holders that are getting cut off. Seriously they are going to bait law or not why not make sense of it.

  • Jim M

    I totally support the baiting or feeding of deer in Presque Isle county. This is not “club” country and is only bordered on the north by what side of a tree you’re at.

  • trudie2

    I highly doubt a 3 month hunting season is going to spread TB like wild fire. I have hunted the TB zone my whole life and taken 30+ deer and not one was positive for TB. Besides, who is going to drive 30 miles to drop off a head to be tested anyway. The check stations up there aren’t even open. Open baiting state wide with no recreational feeding outside of hunting season and a 2 gallon limit. There are no acorns this year up there so the deer are in for a tough winter anyway and the winter kill will be high so let us hunters put them in the freezer. The deer numbers are low and the QDM practices to let them grow are proving to be positive for quality bucks, but most of us just want meat in the freezer.

  • BILLYKECK

    CONTROLL, MANAGEMENT AND GREED!!?? IT HAS TAKEN YEARS TO CREAT THE PROBLEMS THE HUNTERS MUST PUT UP WITH!! DO YOU WANT THE DEER HARVESTED??? A 2 GALLON BUCKET OF BAIT ON A TRAIL IN THE TB ZONES, MAY ELEMINATE A SICK DEER AND HELP DECREASE THE PROBLEM. OH! THE WALK IN AREAS ON NATIONAL FORREST IN MI. CLOSED TO ALL AUTOMOBILES, INCLUDING THE ” HANDYCAPS?”

  • Edwardruchala

    Well it has begun, $200.00 for a front-end loader Scoop of Sugar Beets due to a “shortage”?
    When dozens of sugar beet full semi trucks were seen on the highways.
    5 to 10 bags of shell corn {at $6- $8 dollars a bag} in pick up trucks all over the roads. What 2-gallon limit? Just how many beets make up 2- gallons ?
    Two or three? Total Madness…
    From what I observed just this past weekend up north, it is nothing short of a baiting free for all. Again.
    50-gallon broadcast spin feeders up in yards and going off at 4:30pm every evening.
    Their controls set to the 2-gallon limit no doubt.
    Why in the world would the DNR return to filling the woods with people who just shoot deer instead of actively Hunting for deer.
    These so-called “hunters” and greed driven, price gouging bait profiteers just
    Disgust me.
    The DNR has reopened up a Pandora’s Box and will be unable to enforce its own regulations on baiting limits now that that King Bait is back.
    Shame On the Michigan DNR for instilling this type of hunting heritage.

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