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DNR Banning Mineral

pwrgraphics

PMA Member
I've talked to a of couple guys who have heard from DNR officers that the state is really pushing to ban putting out deer mineral to help prevent cwd. Has anyone else heard this? Just wondering if it is a new thing or something they have been trying to accomplish and haven't gotten it done. I would be a little bummed if they did ban it. I had a blast last summer running cameras over my mineral stations.
 
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I don't think we've had ONE cwd case! I hope that's not true!!!
 
So when would be the right time to ban mineral licks? After CWD has a strong foothold? CWD is not the only concern, there is also TB, plus if we have an outbreak of EHD, congregations of deer is not a good thing.

I ran a lick last year as well, enjoyed getting tons of pics of deer. But, there were two or three deer that visited that looked really sick. Them visiting the mineral lick put all the deer at risk. I imagine that they weren't real contagious and it might have given the other deer an immuno boost against what they were suffering from, but why risk it?

I'm leaning toward not running a "dedicated" wildlife mineral lick this year. I'll probably just put a cam over the mineral block we have for our horses. Not much difference, is there......
 
i dont want to sit and cause any big arguements..but what is different than small food plots in the winter when tons of deer pile in them? I realize they say the spread is through saliva...but it cant be any different if they are in a food plot touching noses and licking eachother?
 
i dont want to sit and cause any big arguements..but what is different than small food plots in the winter when tons of deer pile in them? I realize they say the spread is through saliva...but it cant be any different if they are in a food plot touching noses and licking eachother?
I see your point but they are not all eating the same ear of corn or clover leaf a mineral site is comparable to every kid at a school eating lunch out of the same bowl if its just dumped on the ground
 
If your mineral lick or salt block has been put on the ground, or stirred in with the dirt, etc, you'll have a "mineral station" there for several years whether you want to or not. The only way you can really abandon one is if it were an above ground site.

NWBuck
 
but what is different than small food plots in the winter when tons of deer pile in them? I realize they say the spread is through saliva...but it cant be any different if they are in a food plot touching noses and licking eachother?

kind of like the difference of me sneezing directly in your face, as opposed to be sneezing in your garage
 
i dont want to sit and cause any big arguements..but what is different than small food plots in the winter when tons of deer pile in them? I realize they say the spread is through saliva...but it cant be any different if they are in a food plot touching noses and licking eachother?

Are you freaking serious? :thrwrck:
 
Other midwestern states have been spending on the average of 10 million dollars a year trying to control CWD and bovine Tb. If you think the budget is thin now, wait till we get an outbreak.

Best to stop it before it starts.

The 'Bonker
 
all baiting is illegal in wi. including mineral/salt stations. Sucks because like some said before....what a great way to inventory the bucks throughout the summer months. I haven't heard about this proposal, but I tell you what.......it would suck for us down here.
 
all baiting is illegal in wi. including mineral/salt stations. Sucks because like some said before....what a great way to inventory the bucks throughout the summer months. I haven't heard about this proposal, but I tell you what.......it would suck for us down here.

What would suck for us down here is to be like Wisconsin and have endemic CWD.

The 'Bonker
 
Other midwestern states have been spending on the average of 10 million dollars a year trying to control CWD and bovine Tb. If you think the budget is thin now, wait till we get an outbreak.

Since '02 Wi has spent 41M fighting CWD
Michigan has spent 150M since '94 on TB

Neb has a captive elk & fallow deer herd with CWD & TB. In SD a cattle herd(500) is now infected with TB. The cows are just across the border from elk & fallow.

Not a popular piece of legislation, but neither is CWD. Better to be pro active than to spend millions on something that can lay dormant in the ground for 7 years.
 
It's hard not to support this bill ... I wonder how existing mineral sites will be viewed/legislated? I know mineral sites that have not been refreshed for years and they are still used/visited frequently.
 
What really needs to be banned, is captive deer, in fences and pens. That is how all this disease business got started. Deer in unatural contact on deer / hunting farms, fed artificial feed, in real close contact. I come from MI, and they still allow the deer farms. It's crazy? As far as the real threat all these diseases pose,,,I am sorry, I highly question the threat. TB became the Big Boogy Man up in MI. and it has been there for a hundred yrs. I saw Old news clippings from the 30s about it in the cattle. CWD has been in the wild elk and deer out west for some time now and it has not decimated the herds there,, as some "Experts", predicted. Michigan got alot of federal funds, to study the TB, as well as the Farm Bureau, and funds to control it. Many jobs in the making. A friend of mine almost got a job testing deer. It was to pay quite well. Then the disease problem, was used to kill lots of deer,,helping with the car collisions and the Insurance companies,,another benefit. I don't swallow all the hipe. Possibly I am miss informed,,but I remain a skeptic.
 
Have to ban salt blocks for cattle too. My land is surrounded by cattle country. Deer use these more than from deer hunters,,I think.
 
Have to ban salt blocks for cattle too. My land is surrounded by cattle country. Deer use these more than from deer hunters,,I think.

This is true. I have salt blocks by watering holes that the deer use, but is for the cattle on my rented ground. Mineral stations will be there for along time after hunters stop using them.

But it would suck for the disease to come in iowa because it really screwed up wi hunting. but maybe it really got screwed because wi legislature is about as stupid as they come. lol
 
once the disease is here, there is no stopping it. if this keeps it from coming, or gains us a few years, its well worth it
 
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