Ted Nugent states that banning deer baits from lawmakers will harm the Michigan hunting industry

The Michigan-born musician, Ted Nugent, said Tuesday that the ban would ban deer bait and feed on the Capitol, saying the ban would "drive hunter families out of sport for no reason at all. ".

The musician known for such successes as "Cat Scratch Fever", "Stranglehold" and "Fred Bear" is presented to the House Government Operations Committee to support legislation authorizing deer feeding. and elk in Michigan, as well as bait during the hunting season.

The bill was introduced in response to bait and food bans in the Lower Peninsula and in parts of the Upper Peninsula put in place by the Natural Resources Commission – which sets the rules for the hunting and fishing in the state – to limit the spread of chronic debilitating disease.

Nugent wondered about the scientific reasoning behind the bans, noting that he spent every hunting season watching deer being traded for deer, eating the same apples and branches and adopting the same behaviors.

"I do not have a lab coat and I've never spent a moment in the lab," he told lawmakers. "What I have observed and observed every year of my life is totally opposed to what epidemiologists have forced us to adopt."

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S addressing reporters as a result of his testimony, Nugent said the ban would trigger a "widespread civil disobedience" among Michigan hunters.

"It's a moment for Rosa Parks," he said. "The law is wrong, the law is bad, the law is illegal."

Representatives of the law, Michele Hoitenga, R-Manton, and Senator Curt VanderWall, R-Ludington, who had introduced similar legislation in the Senate earlier this year, joined Nugent.

No one from the Department of Natural Resources or the Natural Resources Commission testified at the hearing, but officials stated that feeding and baiting were detrimental to disease control efforts as they increased contact rates with animals above the normal.

Chronic debilitating disease, or CDD, is a contagious and fatal neurological disease found in deer, elk and moose. Since the discovery of the first white-tailed deer living in Michigan in May 2015 in Michigan, cases have been confirmed in Clinton, Eaton, Gratiot, Ionia, Ingham, Jackson, Kent and Montcalm Counties. Last October, a deer positive for the deer virus was also found in the Upper Peninsula of Dickinson County.

In a statement Tuesday, DNR spokesman Ed Golder said research showed that bait and food increased the risk of transmission of the disease, citing a list of references on the ministry's website. The ministry also believes that the power to ban bait and food should remain with the Natural Resources Commission.

"Peer-reviewed research has shown that baits and feeding concentrating animals beyond their travel patterns increase the risk of disease transmission," he said.

Amy Trotter, executive director of the Michigan United Conservation Club, told lawmakers Tuesday that chronic wasting disease is endangering the deer population in Michigan, and that baiting and feeding bans can help stop its spread.

"Chronic wasting disease does not look like Cat Scratch Fever – there is no known cure," Trotter said, focusing on one of Nugent's most popular songs.

Nugent said he and other Michigan hunters should be able to hunt as they please, especially when they are on private property. He said he did not need bait to hunt, but the option should be available.

"The king does not own the stag," he says, "We, the people, are the owners of the stag."

The Michigan bow hunting season begins on October 1 and ends in November. December 14 and January 1 1. The firearms season runs from November 15 to 30.

The approved regulation for the 2019 Deer Hunt seasons maintains the existing ban on baiting and feeding animals throughout the lower peninsula, which came into effect in January, and extends this prohibition to a range of 660 miles squares containing parts of Dickinson, Delta and Menominee. counties of the Upper Peninsula.

The House Government Operations Committee did not accept the bill that Nugent supported for a vote on Tuesday, but committee chair Jason Sheppard of R-Temperance said he would continue to study the issue. .

"I think it's a big enough issue to go out and start talking," he said. "There are sportsmen all over the country who consider it to be a very passionate issue for them."