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Post by ridge on Jun 15, 2018 12:38:21 GMT -5
The proposed Lower Peninsula bait ban will harm the non-mobile/disabled hunting group more than other groups of deer hunters,
1) Non-mobile hunters can't move to the deer. The deer need to move to these hunters for them to have any success.
2) Many disabled hunters require more than the average amount of time to bring their sights to bear on a target. Bait often encourages deer to stop long enough for a sighting opportunity and a more responsible shot.
3) There are a lot of non-mobile hunters that are not eligible for the special early hunts because of DNR restrictions for those hunts.
4) How many hunters would like to be limited to a very few days when other hunters are allowed at least 90 days of hunting each year. The DNR states that they are not prejudiced against disabled hunters but they want to greatly reduce the possibility of their success.
5) If disabled hunters want to be spectators, they will buy a ticket to an entertainment or to an athletic contest. Disabled hunters want to hunt because they want to be active participants and not just spectators. Without bait the disabled hunter, in many cases, is reduced to little more than a spectator while deer hunting.
6) Banning bait will alienate yet another group of deer hunters while producing an extremely small effect, if any, on the CWD problem.
IMO banning bait is not worth the cost of the harm it will do to the non-mobile/disabled hunting group of deer hunters.
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Post by gonefishing on Jun 15, 2018 13:27:17 GMT -5
The only thing that has slowed the spread of CWD is reduced or eliminated testing for it. Banning bait will make some of us physically challenged quit or reduce their tag purchases. Or make a whole new class of violators.
CWD is spreading as we speak, and there ain't no baiting stations out there yet. How many bait plots are out there gathering hoofprints?
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Post by galena on Jun 16, 2018 0:25:02 GMT -5
Some very good points and I agree with them Ridge, it is very predictable...NO DOUBT ABOUT IT. The DNR seems pretty intent on earning that whole Do Nothing Right thing on this subject. I do not use bait, but I know many able bodied hunters that do, it is not just the disabled that will be leaving deer hunting in droves. Between the bait ban and the coming doe genocide the deer hunter numbers in this state are gonna plummet like a rock if the NRC cannot see through this bull excrement.
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Post by swampy on Jun 16, 2018 23:24:48 GMT -5
I really think they are on the right track, if hunters cooperate. The other states haven't had cooperation...they say it didn't work, but the fact is hunters didn't do their part.
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Post by galena on Jun 17, 2018 3:11:42 GMT -5
I really think they are on the right track, if hunters cooperate. The other states haven't had cooperation...they say it didn't work, but the fact is hunters didn't do their part. I will not be cooperating in the furtherment of the doe slaughter. I helped pile em up in the 90's, they will not fool me again. The farmers, dmaps, and their farmhands do all the doe slaying needed around here and then some already. So far this year we have seen one adult doe with fawns within 1mile in any direction of our property, yeah like 4 square miles with plentiful hay fields to eat in. That's bull**** and they wanna pound on them some more for some disease that has likely been here for years and years and cannot be eliminated anyway. Sorry I do not buy it. I know what's coming when the DNR gives the ag guys around here the go ahead and encouragement to slaughter more does than they already do.....I am gonna say **** it and sell my Gratiot Co. property and buy a house on a lake somewhere.
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Post by swampy on Jun 17, 2018 7:57:37 GMT -5
Galena, science does not tell us how to fix CWD yet. But it may in the future. Shouldn't we try to contain it in the meantime, and shouldn't we also try to contain it to keep as much of the state CWD free for as long as possible.
Think about the bTB zone. Certainly it sucks for those in and around the zone,it also sucks for those in the buffer zone. But it has been largely contained for 23 years now, certainly without those initial and continuing efforts it would have spread throughout the state bye now....Is that what success looks like ?
One thing is for certain if hunters don't cooperate in the CWD zone, control efforts will not work.
Hopefully hunters in the CWD zone will focus on the big picture when it comes to sacrifice for the future of the deer herd.
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Post by Dale Malusi on Jun 17, 2018 10:30:46 GMT -5
I fail to see how banning baiting and feeding of deer will have any measurable effect in combating CWD. It may have some effect on hunter metrics, but not positively. There are too many possible ways for a deer to be infected and baiting is possibly the least caustic. Watering spots, scrapes, rubs, bedding areas, feeding areas, and trails between such are fecal and uric minefields. Accumulating more each day. And what about after the shot? A gut pile for ever dead deer. And what happens to the leftovers after butchering?
Baiting is just small potatoes in the fight against CWD. Banning it won't accomplish anything but make those who have been against it happy.
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Post by ridge on Jun 17, 2018 16:45:09 GMT -5
Exactly, Doehead. I am not in the CWD zone yet but even so, I will be the one that determines how many doe are shot on my property. IMO the DNR is covering their back 40 enough so that they can say they did something. For the most part it is meaningless. Swamp, a disease can't spread if there are no to few victims/deer to carry it. That also means that a lot of deer without the disease will die and deer hunting will also die so what has happened that is positive. The big clubs go on with business as usual and the rest of us sit on the sidelines.
It is time that the DNR/researchers study the disease and not hunters. Feel good strategies accomplish little to nothing. The disabled are the first ones to be thrown under the bus because we are the smallest group of hunters. Their prejudice and bias are obvious. I would check with an attorney that is well versed in conservation, the outdoors, or disability actions if I had the money. My only recourse is the legislature but the disabled do not have enough votes to influence them. So we are . . .
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Post by galena on Jun 18, 2018 5:10:04 GMT -5
Galena, science does not tell us how to fix CWD yet. But it may in the future. Shouldn't we try to contain it in the meantime, and shouldn't we also try to contain it to keep as much of the state CWD free for as long as possible. Think about the bTB zone. Certainly it sucks for those in and around the zone,it also sucks for those in the buffer zone. But it has been largely contained for 23 years now, certainly without those initial and continuing efforts it would have spread throughout the state bye now....Is that what success looks like ? One thing is for certain if hunters don't cooperate in the CWD zone, control efforts will not work. Hopefully hunters in the CWD zone will focus on the big picture when it comes to sacrifice for the future of the deer herd. When the plagues hit way back when do you think it would have been a good idea to have proactively killed off all the folks that may get it in the rest of the county, or country....., or do what we did and let the one's that already had genetic resistance built in their DNA fight the way nature intended? No population...no victims right? I only know one thing for certain, the DNR/NRC will do more harm "fighting" cwd than cwd has ever or ever will do to the herd on it's own. PERIOD It does not really matter what I think anyway, the DNR has proven that my opinion has below absolute zero importance to them over and over and over. As long as they are selling licenses, they do not rightly give two ****'s what anyone thinks. That day is coming to a close despite the fact they quit "counting" deer for no other reason than plausible deniability years ago. In reality I only have two words for the dnr and one of them words is off, the other I cannot type here. Their hail Mary to save face as they go ahead with desires they have held for a long long time does not impress me much, they are getting exactly what the farmers that rule the dnr/nrc have wanted all along, the perfect scape goat arrived for them wrapped in a great big cwd bow.
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Post by ridge on Jul 15, 2018 17:29:16 GMT -5
galena, I agree with you. After putting in a lot of time and energy communicating with the NRC, I no longer think that they are listening or perhaps ever intended to do so. Now unless a person is on their special private call list, he or she simply does not count. So much for our way of government or the NRC's own process and rules, they mean nothing. The disabled in our camp pretty much believe that the time may have come to quit hunting. They believe that the DNR is lying when they state that they support the Disabilities Acts. If they, or those that do, decide to continue hunting, there is total agreement that the DNR will not decide on how many does will be taken in our camp. We will not destroy our herd to further the DNR fantasies.
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