Wednesday, August 27, 2008 - http://www.ludingtondailynews.com/news.php?story_id=41211
Baiting has become synonymous with deer hunting in Michigan over the years.
But that all changed Tuesday when the Michigan Department of Natural Resources banned all baiting and feeding of deer in the Lower Peninsula. The action was in response to the discovery of a three-year-old deer testing positive for chronic wasting disease in Kent County.
The move could sink several farmers and force the layoffs of farm workers, according to Jerry Malburg of Hart.
Malburg grows a type of beet that has no other market than deer feed.
“It’s an animal feed,” Malburg said. “I think we’ve got close to $40,000 of seed this year and right now there’s no home for this product.
“It’s going to be devastating to a lot of the growers, plus the sellers
Malburg said he’s hopeful the DNR will allow some baiting in some areas of the state after further consideration.
“We’ve been down to meetings in the past, they assured us they would inform us of a ban prior to planting. Every year, we look at it, say they haven’t informed us of anything different, so we’re going to plant. It’s a large part of our operation.
“The other thing there’s no market for is the carrots. A lot of the carrots sold for deer feed are cull carrots. Forty percent of our operation is cull carrots. We don’t make a lot of money on them, but it’s better than paying to get rid of them.”
Malburg said the beets and carrots can’t be fed to cows or pigs, at least not in the numbers that are sitting in the field.
(See DEER BAITING, A2 DEER BATING from page A1)
“What you’re running into in hog farms and dairy, they are so particular on what they feed,” Malburg said. “We have 4,000 hogs ourselves and we cannot feed them any carrots. Maybe a guy with four or five hogs can feed them, but we’re looking at trainloads of carrots a week for deer feed.
“That would take quite a few pigs to eat them up, or quite a few cows.”
Malburg said the timing is very difficult.
“The timing is terrible, you’re talking first of September coming,” Malburg said. “People are calling and ordering product, ordering bags for product. We had an order in for $25,000 worth of bags, fortunately they haven’t shipped yet so we called and canceled.
“It won’t be like the car industry, but it certainly will be an impact on the industry.”
Strangely, Malburg said he can support a ban on deer baiting, just not one announced in August.
“Because of the competition of baiting, deer hunting has changed,” Malburg said. “We used to go out and hunt deer, but now we go out and hunt a bait pile. If it does stop it may be the best thing for hunting, but the timing is terrible.”
Area hunters were surprised by the action, but most contacted were supportive of the change. Most were bowhunters who have used bait at one time or another.
Gary Andersen of Amber Township said the change is a positive thing for hunting.
“I do a lot of food plots,” Andersen said. “My very first reaction was ‘That will take us back to really hunting deer — checking trails, going to food sources, whether natural or food plots.’ You can’t just throw a bunch of bait out just see what shows up and shoot it.”
Andersen said it will, however, hurt many farms and businesses.
“There’s got to be a lot of people bumming right now because they sell a lot of feed across the state,” Andersen said.
Ray Keith of Victory Township wasn’t so sure. A farmer with hundreds of acres of corn, Keith also runs small feed supply station out of his barn.
Keith said before the two-gallon rule, he was selling about eight times as much bait as he is now. Recent problems with theft forced him to change the station from a self-serve 24-hour-a-day depot to a locked-down barn that only sells during daylight hours.
Keith said he can sell his feed corn commercially if he has to, but he’s not so sure people will stop buying. There are still birds and squirrels to feed.
Asked if he thought people would stop baiting deer, he laughed.
“I don’t know,” Keith said. “Don’t ask me.”
When told of the ban, Randy Wolfe’s reaction was: “Cool.”
Wolfe, of Legends Taxidermy and a noted local bowhunter said he doesn’t bait much.
But he said he’s pretty sure the baiting ban will not help the deer kill.
“It’s going to hurt it,” Wolfe said. “You put a pile of bait out there and it works.”
Wolfe said hunters will have to go back to hunting runways and foodplots.
Asked if he thought the baiting ban was necessary, he said no.
“I think they blow this CWD thing way out of proportion,” Wolfe said. “Colorado has had it since the 1940s.”
In the long run, he’s not sure the move will help the DNR in its quest for new hunters.
“It’s going to make hunting harder, which will discourage the new hunters we need,” Wolfe said.
A spokesperson for Grassa’s Market said the move will hurt farmers and dealers.
“We haven’t got anything in,” she said. “We were waiting on a load of sugar beets and carrots, but nothing’s come in yet.”
She said the change would likely shorten the farm market’s season by a month.
“(Bait) extends the season from Halloween to December,” she said. “If nothing can be sold, we’ll probably be out of here by the first of November.”
Dick Coleman of Capt. Chuck’s Great Outdoors said he was glad the state banned bait.
“It’s going to hurt some of the businessmen but as far as deer hunting, I like to see guys have to hunt,” Coleman said. “Use your calls, use your scents.”