Formerly The Outspoken Sportsman

Our intrepid DNR CO's happily issued over 200 tickets for illegal feeding to private landowner who reside in that boiling bovine TB caldron known as Unit 452.  The release went on to say that not a single ticket was given to anyone in the farming community.

And why was this, you may well ask?

Why purely and simply because even though farm after farm was seen to have large numbers of those big, round hay bails left in the files that the deer were delighted to much away on, as well as dozens of unfenced silo areas where silage was regularly spilled on the ground to be eagerly scarfed up by any number of hungry whitetails NOSE TO NOSE OR OTHERWISE, the spin that the Farm Bureau and the DNR enforcement people put on the situation was that "IT WAS NOT THE FARMER'S INTENT TO FEED DEER!!"

Ergo, no tickets for Farmer Brown, but let's be sure to slap that vicious scoff-law, little old Granny Gumpstump with a summons and a sizable fine because she tossed out a bucket or tow of feed for handful of deer to eat in her own back yard.

And to add insult to injury, these clowns bragged about it!!

They were absolutely sure that this was the right and proper way to handle the situation!

My God!  Even a mugger is most times honest enough to use a gun when he steals from you!

It has been a never ending source of amazement to me to observe how many wildlife writers in this state seem to delight in perpetuating the bovine TB myth, (Aw heck! Let us call it what it is, A LIE!!!), on a regular basis.

It happens all the time!

Case in point, I bring to your attention a statement from a recent article that "Shep" Shepherd wrote in his" Northwoods Call", blasting the NRC because they allowed supplemental feeding and baiting to go on in the U.P.

And I quote:

"Dept. Of Agriculture officials have argued for a total ban on feeding in the state, to curtail any future outbreaks of disease such as the TB that is WRACKING the deer herd and the livestock industry in northeast, lower Michigan."

Dear readers, Let me repeat that less than fifty cattle were found to be SUSPECTED of having the disease out of almost a million tested and only around 350 deer out of over 60,000 tested were deemed to be suspect as well.

And please understand that there is a big difference between an animal being judged "suspect" and that same animal actually found to truly have the disease!

But to the worthy Mr. Shepherd, these figures indicate to him that the area has been "wracked" by this dread disease.

Now, granted there were a lot more cattle "depopulated" than the fifty or so animals thought to be infected.

But that was because of the rules and regulations of the Michigan Department of Agriculture which required that if even one cow from a given herd tested positive, all of the animals had to be killed, infected or not and the carcasses incinerated.  So if that area of Northeastern Michigan has seen the deer herd and the cattle industry "wracked" by something or other, it's sure as hell not the fault of what amount to basically a non-existent epidemic!
And further, it is my considered opinion that an awful lot of perfectly healthy cattle were slaughtered unnecessarily and even sadder, all of the meat was wasted.

News FLash!!!
I have just had the opportunity to read a very recent article from the Alpena News which states that "Area beef and dairy producers who were not paid 100% of fair market value when their cattle were destroyed because of bovine TB will receive retroactive payments.
Bottom line?
All of the farmers who had their herds "depopulated" are going to be reimbursed, by the state, (you and I), for the full market value of those herds.  And pretty much everyone is aware that many of the herds which were killed off frankly are not worth anywhere near the "full market value price" put on them by the bureaucrats involved who are so anxious to throw our money at these farmers.
One more interesting point.
I have read and re-read this article and nowhere in the piece was I able to find any kind of indication that the state planned to make available anything in the way of reimbursement monies to those other area business people who have lost their motels, or bars, or gas stations, or "mom or pop" grocery stores which have been devastated by the baiting bans and the resulting absence of hunters in DMU 452 and the surrounding area.
Nope, not a single dollar earmarked to help these folks out!
Doesn't seem quite fair does it?
And it does further indicate, at lease to me that if anyone or anything is being "wracked" in that particular area, it doesn't seem to be the farmers.
See good people, what this whole thing is about, purely and simply is money!!
 
Always has been, is now and always will.
$40 million up to this point.
 
And you may rest assured that just a tiny fraction of the above amount has been spent for research or the actual combating of the disease!
No, this money is primarily being earmarked for the very bureaucratic participants involved in this little play.

If you doubt me, I would bring to your attention a recent health board meeting held in Cheboygan which included a special report by Personal Health Nursing Director Rosanne Shultz who happily informed the assemblage there that the health department in that area would again be receiving more money to "continue outreach activities to people at a higher risk for coming in contact with the disease as it did last year".

In essence, she was more than pleased to report that more money would be forthcoming from you and I to continue testing on such folks as framers and their families who have had an incidence of the disease on their farms as well as "hunters, trappers, taxidermists and meat processors" who are considered to be at risk.

"So far this area has been fairly fortunate," Shultz said.

Well, my dear, if you would consider the fact that not a single individual anywhere at anytime in the history of the state of Michigan has ever been found to be infected with bovine TB, I guess that you could indeed proclaim that we all have been fairly fortunate. 

The article also mentions that again this year several thousands of dollars will be handled to this good lady to continue with her all important testing procedures.

Of course she doesn't want to see this cash cow dry up.

As long as the people who have been hired to rid our state of this dread disease can continue to convince our legislators and the general public that a true, highly dangerous and contagious bovine TB epidemic not only exists but is running rampant through out both the cattle industry and the state's deer heard, the funds till continue to flow an they will be able to maintain their phony-baloney jobs!

That's why each and every year as regular as the changing seasons, at least one new cattle herd is found to be infected!

It is essential that they keep the pot boiling and public opinion on their side.

The fact that they have spent the last several years lying through their collective teeth, doesn't seem to have much of a bearing on the situation!

And this brings us to what has to be the most incredible about-face ever demonstrated by those hardy souls who make up our very own Natural Resources Commission.

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, it was this joyful band of bureaucratic buffoons who deemed it necessary, nay, imperative to make into law severe restrictions which eliminated all baiting and supplemental feeding in the now infamous Deer Management Unit 452.

It was during this time that the individuals who were being made out to be the true do-nastys in this whole deal were those evil folks who owned and/or belonged to large sporting groups located in that often discussed portion of DMU 452 known as.......

"THE CLUB LAND!!!"  OOOOOH!!

We were made to believe that these folks were surely to blame for both the actual inception and further spread of bovine TB throughout the DMU.

After all, way back in the mid-seventies no less an organization than the Michigan Department of Agriculture had assured us all that Michigan was a "TB free state" and we all know that these folks would never lie to us.

Balderdash!!

Trust me on this one!

The very people who first stated this "bovine TB-free state" nonsense as being a fact knew very well that Michigan has never been TB free as far back as the mid-forties and very probably far longer ago than that!

The reason for the lie was that none of the AG people wanted anyone to know that they had simply dropped the ball back in the mid-seventies when they decided to curtail the testing of the state's cattle herds for bovine TB.

And then somebody found that first bovine TB infected deer and as a result these bureaucrats had to admit, (privately of course), that they had failed to do their jobs properly, and bovine TB was now in the deer herd of the state.

What to do?

They needed someone or a group of someone's' to blame and who better than the sportsman or women who regularly engaged in an "unsavory" activity already being frowned upon by many of these very bureaucrats.

That being deer hunting over bait piles and feeding deer behind private citizen's homes.

And we all know how much fun it is to find fault and put the blame for everything that goes wrong with our lives on those rich folk who have more than we do.

So there it was.

After all didn't these rich club members bring in huge amounts of carrots, sugarbeets and other toothsome foodstuffs so desired by feeding whitetails?

And didn't these great piles of deer feed serve to encourage not-to-nose feeding among these deer?

(Pretty much the same way that food rich pastures and hay bales left in the famer's fields or treetops left on the forest floor by loggers do?)

Didn't we all hear stories about these fat-cat club owners buying and transplanting into their club areas huge, many antlered mega-bucks brought there to breed with the existing doe population?  Deer that almost certainly, according to these bureaucrats, was the cause of bovine TB being introduced into these areas.

Wasn't it the policy of these club people to purposely keep the deer numbers on their lands abnormally high which served to exacerbate the spread of the disease?

Oh yes dear reader.  We knew who to blame!

And the DNR, the Natural Resources Commission, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and the State Farm Bureau lost no time in making up laws and regulations banning the practices of baiting and supplemental feeding, first in the DMU 452, TB "hotspot" and then, a short time later, in an additional eleven counties, some of which had found but a single diseased deer in the entire county!

You all know of course, that a state law exists which states that should even one, single, diseased deer be found in any count currently open to baiting, that a baiting ban will instantly be put into place for the whole county.

No restrictions or bans or additional requirements would be placed on the farmers and their inappropriate farming methods.

No, the spin that these silly people would like to put on the whole situation is that in their considered opinion, the only possible way that that animal could have become infected was at a hunter's baitpile or at a recreational viewing site behind the home of the private citizen.

And, even more amazing to me was that while all of this was going on, and the state was finding itself coming closer and closer to having it's "TB-free" status revoked by the feds, none other than Dan Wyant, the head of the Michigan Agriculture Department came out with a statement that it was his opinion that Michigan really didn't need the TB-free designation anyway.  In fact, it probably wasn't even the best thing for the state to have one due to the fact that most of the cattle trading done here in the state was primarily between Michigan farmers.

Do you see how these bureaucrats twist in the wind first one way than another??

For the last several years, literally dozens of articles have been churned out by various "expert" writers dealing with the bovine TB situation and virtually without exception they all got around to the same point before the end of the piece.

In nearly every instance all of these writer made the same connection between baiting, supplemental feeding and the spread of bovine TB.

Major efforts by the bureaucrats within the NRC and the DNR were implemented to make every effort to have both of these practices banned throughout the whole state.

In fact, as of this writing, across the entire Lower Peninsula, all supplemental feeding has been outlawed and if folks like NRC Commissioner Nancy Douglas, our lone representative to the Commission from the U.P. had her way, the same feeding bans would apply here in the Upper even through there has never, ever been the tiniest trace of the disease discovered.

But more than anything else, the practice of baiting for deer was the one major issue that was continually blasted by these "expert bovine TB pundits" as being the real poster child of all irresponsible hunting practices.  It was, according to these "experts" just a really bad thing to do and went a very long way towards jeopardizing the future of the cattle industry as well as the deer herd in our state.

A special point that I have made over and over again throughout this time period was that on the one hand these bureaucrats wanted to see the deer herd continually, drastically reduced, but on the other they were doing everything possible to take from the legitimate deer hunter what is without question one of the best deer removal and reduction tools we have ever had access to.

That being, a whole lot of hunters, sitting in a whole lot of blinds, over a while lot of bait piles killing a while lot of deer!

Well dear readers, you can imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that the NRC, after making baiting out to be the prime cause for the bovine TB problem, has, in their infinite wisdom decreed that "limited baiting" is a perfectly acceptable hunting method to be engaged in by hunters in none other place than that notorious, TB hotspot, Deer Management Unit 452!

You read right, my friends.  This very hunting season baiting will indeed be allowed right smack in the middle of the very spot that all of these NRC people very well know has by fat the highest incidence rate of this disease in the entire state!

The reasoning behind this shocking decision by the NRC is that since the number of hunters using that area has dropped substantially since the baiting bans took effect, that if these restrictions are lifted, then perhaps these sportspeople will return to hunt those five counties which make up DMU 452 and that might possibly result in more deer being killed which in turn might reduce the number of disease carrying whitetails.

Really!! 

Sort of sounds like the same thing I just mentioned only said a bit differently, doesn't it?

There is no question that the economy in that area has suffered dramatically because of a lack of hunter and the immense amount of money they bring into the coffers of local business.

But even when the NRC does something right, they never seem to go far enough!  If the baiting ban has been lifted in the major bovine TB area in the state, why has it not also been removed from the other eleven counties currently under similar restrictions? 

Must these other counties have to wait until they also find themselves similarly financially devastated before the NRC chooses to give them the same dispensation?

It's too bizarre to contemplate.

And as expected, the other major players in this drama such as the bureaucrats from the Michigan Agriculture Department, the DNR Wildlife Division and the State Farm Bureau are squalling like a bunch of scorched cats over the way they have been "betrayed" by the members of the NRC.

They would have us all believe that because of this remarkable decision by the Natural Resources Commission that the cattle industry in the state has been put in harms way more than ever before and that because of the resumption of baiting the disease will begin to run rampant throughout lower, Northeastern Michigan and yadda, yadda, yadda!!

It is my belief that what these folks are really upset about is that never again will any of them ever, with a straight face, be able to place the blame for the spread of bovine TB on baiting.  The NRC's decision has taken care of that permanently, thank you very much!

And further, they are all becoming increasingly aware that the general public is beginning to wake up to the fact that they have been lied to by these people from the very first!

And here is another question for you to mull over regarding this affair.

Wasn't the basis for the whole "proposal G" situation which effectively handed over the responsibilities and decisions for the management rules and regulations involving our State wildlife to the Natural Resources Commission all supposed to be based on "sound scientific information"?

That's what we were told when we were sold this bill of goods several years ago!

Well, let me bring to you a quotation from a recent article supposedly written by NRC Commissioner Mr. Keith Charters and somebody else by the name of Jorden Tatter.

This comes from the "Commentary" column of the "Michigan Outdoor News" paper and in an obvious attempt to justify the NRC's decision to allow baiting back into DMU 452.

Here is what these two have to say on the matter.

"After we had a three day visit with 17 hunt clubs in DMU 452, the NRC decided to move ahead with a one-time test project."

Now that sure sounds real scientific to me!

Let's all spend a few days running around the club county listening to the disgruntled members of thee various camps complain about the lack of deer and hunting opportunities as we enjoy sumptuous meals and copious amount of adult beverages after which we will then arbitrarily make a change which allows these folks to go back to baiting in their area 

The same way they have done for decades.  (It should also be made very clear that good old Keith Charter just happens to be a member in good standing with one of these very clubs which is being adversely affected by the feeding bans!)

Sound Scientific Evidence???  RIGHT!!

It seems that only now they have come to realize and admit that one of the biggest parts of the deer management equation in that area or anywhere else for that matter is the impact of the hunting pubic.  And further, they have also ruefully acknowledged that the bringing back of baiting for sportspeople hunting that area, will most probably result in a larger deer kill for this season.

Kind of makes you wonder how many additional deer would have been taken over the past several years if the baiting situation would have simply been left alone.

And if there was ever a clearer indication that the Proposal G fiasco is just not working, I don't know what it would be.

So I say a couple of things.

First, get rid of proposal G AND WITH IT Keith Charter and that benevolent, state-run asylum for the feeble-minded affectionately known as the Natural Resources Commission and put the responsibilities for the care and management of our wildlife in the hands of our State legislators where it belongs!

And secondly, force the bureaucrats within the agriculture community to suspend this useless, costly and totally unnecessary campaign against bovine TB within our state and start addressing a truly serious epidemic which even the State Farm Bureau admits is found in over 50% of all the dairy and beef cattle herds of the state, named JOHNE'S DISEASE!!

(And we've discussed this issue before right here in this magazine!)

Folks, let me bring this piece to a close by putting the whole bovine TB situation into what I hope will prove to be a clear, concise, logical, legitimate perspective for you.

As I see it, here is the true bottom line involving this issue.

If there were even the smallest particle of rock solid, hard copy evidence that, (1.), this so-called "epidemic" is anywhere near as serious as Mr. Bender and the wildlife people from the DNR and the Michigan Agriculture Department and the State Farm Bureau constantly continue to claim it to be, and (2.), that if it could honestly, legitimately be demonstrated and conclusively proven that deer baiting and supplemental feeding is, in fact the terrifying boogyman they would like us all to believe it is, there wouldn't even be an issue here!  All baiting and supplemental feeding would be instantly forbidden throughout the entire state whether the sportsman liked it or not, and that ban would be rigidly endorsed by any means necessary, up to and including the National Guard!

If the deer were found to truly be the major cause of the spread of this disease, the entire whitetail herd of this state would be totally depopulated and I would also venture that the bureaucrats within the health department agencies involved would find both assistance and major support from the sportsman of our state!

But none of the above has even come close to being proven and now the NRC has effectively vindicated and validated what I have been saying for years which is that there is no connection between baiting and the spread of the disease and absolutely no reason to stopthe hunting community from engaging in this practice.

And I find the whole thing to be nothing short of delicious.

There is only one thing that is more fun than to be proven right and that is to observe the bureaucrats as they slash each other to pieces with their own straight razors.

And that's exactly what's happening now.

Sometimes it's just plain good to be alive.

Bill Moore

THE OUTSPOKEN SPORTSMAN