Commentary: Why is the Michigan DNR silent on proposed baiting bill?

Editor’s note: Russ Mason is the former Michigan DNR Wildlife Division chief and a regular contributor to the Outdoor News publications.

The seven principles of the North American Model of Fish and Wildlife Conservation represent the most successful approach to sustainable game and sportfish management ever devised. Chief among those principles is the recognition that “science is the proper tool for the discharge of wildlife policy.”

Unfortunately, for both the resource and the future of hunting, state legislatures across the United States are choosing to ignore this fundamental tenet. North Dakota, for example, recently legalized baiting for big game animals over near universal objections from hunting organizations and the North Dakota Department of Game Fish and Parks. It’s disappointing but not surprising that legislators often choose short-term wins over what’s good for the sustainable wise use of wildlife.

Closer to home, some Michigan state legislators seem intent on imitating the mistakes of their counterparts to the west. House Bill 4445 and Senate Bill 65 propose to abolish Michigan’s baiting ban, purportedly to “end excessive governmental overreach and depriving hunters of a practical method during a time of deer overpopulation affecting farmers, gardeners, and motorists.”

MORE COVERAGE FROM MICHIGAN OUTDOOR NEWS:

Outdoor Observations: Hunting-related legislation on the move in Michigan

Ongoing GPS moose study from Michigan showing encouraging signs of calf production

Problem bear complaints higher in Michigan’s U.P. this spring

This badly mistaken perspective ignores a mountain of evidence. Deer baiting is a spectacularly bad idea. Here are just a few of the facts:

• Deer congregating at bait sites are more likely to interact aggressively and transmit infectious diseases over bait than in any other setting.

• The existing baiting ban is the reason that the prevalence of tuberculosis in deer in the northeast Lower Peninsula dropped from 6% in 1994 to 2% where it has remained since.

• CWD is an invariably fatal infectious disease of deer in Michigan and elsewhere; baiting will enhance its prevalence and spread.

Although the legislative sponsors contend that baiting will help farmers, gardeners, and drivers, the only way this could plausibly occur is by facilitating the spread of an always fatal disease like CWD.

There is no evidence that baiting increases deer harvest. Instead, the more likely outcome is harm to Michigan’s agricultural community in that the baiting ban is fundamental to agreements among the DNR, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, and the USDA that allow cattle movement from the northeast Lower Peninsula to other parts of the state and the shipment of any live cattle from Michigan across state lines.

Uninformed legislative meddling in the science-based management of fish and wildlife causes real and irreversible damage. In this context, the experiences of Wyoming and Wisconsin are instructive.

In Wyoming, legislative interference in CWD management made the problems caused by this disease dramatically worse. As a direct result:

• No management intervention is likely to slow the spread of CWD in that state,

• Populations in the southeast are trending toward extirpation,

• The disease has spread to the northwest elk feeding grounds.The expectation is that elk migrating from these locations will super-charge prevalence and spread, not only in Wyoming but also in Idaho and Montana.

In Wisconsin, former Gov. Scott Walker and his legislative allies disabled CWD management as part of their overall war against the DNR, setting in motion what we now know is the probable destruction of deer and deer hunting in the Southern Farmland Zone.

RELATED COVERAGE FROM OUTDOOR NEWS: Wisconsin study shows CWD greatly reduces annual survival rates in deer, suppresses population growth

Today, buck CWD infection rates approach or exceed 30% in the southwestern part of the state and in 2024, buck harvest cratered either because hunters have stopped hunting, are going elsewhere, or because bucks don’t live long enough to become “big enough to shoot.”

To illustrate just how dramatic these impacts are, in Richland County, 33% of the deer test positive for CWD, and the 2024 buck harvest was the 35th lowest out of the past 45 years. Meantime, in adjacent Crawford County where ”only” 11% of deer test positive for CWD, the buck harvest was the highest ever recorded.

Ill-informed pandering by politicians may buy votes, and a baiting license could generate income, but these are devil’s bargains. Today’s abundant natural resources only exist because a century of science-based management overcame the exploitation and abuse of previous generations.