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DNR Banning Mineral

Yeah......;)


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O...M...G...!!! :eek::eek: You could be spreading CWD right NOW!!

Looks like you'll have to rent a backhoe to get rid of those holes if this bill passes...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXWCW633Ahg
 
O...M...G...!!! :eek::eek: You could be spreading CWD right NOW!!

Yup, last year was my final year of a dedicated deer lick. The deer used it all fall, so I can't agree with those who say they don't. I've got pictures that show a different story. I will go along with the statement that "they don't use it as much...."


Looks like you'll have to rent a backhoe to get rid of those holes if this bill passes...
I'm guessing one, maybe two years tops and they will quit hitting it.
 
Hey now I said "pretty much ignore" haha

And maybe they will quit hitting it after 2 years.... but we have one on a piece of ground that hasn't been freshened in years and they still hit it.... so don't count on it.
 
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I could halt them visiting immediately without removing a shovel full of dirt........


It would require as many shovels of horse manure it would take to fill a pickup, though.;)
 
I could halt them visiting immediately without removing a shovel full of dirt........


It would require as many shovels of horse manure it would take to fill a pickup, though.;)


Or have me dump a 5 gallon bucket of cider in the hole.
 
So what happened with this bill? Did it make it out of committee? Or is it dead for the year?

mole
 
Just started another thread on this as I missed this one :(
In any case, my buddy text me today and said that it passed but I don't know any details.
 
I think it has been placed on the House Calander but has not yet come up for debate. Senate version, if I read the legislative web site correctly, was sent to the Ways and Means Committee.

One other thing, it is not the DNR that will ban feeding of wildlife, it is the legislature, the DNR will only enforce what the legislature passes.

The 'Bonker
 
I am going to hit this one more time.

What was the plan here in the US for H1N1? Vaccination and quarantine the ill.

Translate that into deer terms, as far as I know there isn't a vaccination of either CWD of BTb and how do you quarantine wild animals? You don't. You kill them. The first deer that turns up in Iowa with CWD will cause the deer equivalent of "scorched earth". In other words, for several counties around where the deer was found every deer will be eradicated with extreme prejudice.

Think it can't happen? Look to the areas of Wisconsin that were declared CWD zones.

One other thing that hasn’t been discussed is the potential for the transmission of disease FROM domestic livestock TO the deer heard. That may be a bigger potential due to livestock being shipped into Iowa everyday. Sure most of them are Green Tagged but there will always be those that aren’t. Perhaps producers should be restricted to placing salt and mineral blocks in feeders and not directly on the ground.

By taking one small step now, the legislature may save the future of deer hunting in Iowa. It may not; can we afford to be wrong?

One more thing, the cost of CWD and/or bovine Tb has been very well documented, but that was only the actual cost incurred by the states in their attempts to eradicate the diseases. The figures do not take in to consideration the lost revenue in license sales, hunting gear and federal matching funds generated from the excise taxes the feds have on some hunting equipment.

Anyway, like I said in an earlier post, I have never changed anybodies mind about anything, ever, and I don't expect to now but I would be remiss if I did not try.

OK, one more thing. As of a couple of years ago the QDMA could not draw a direct scientific link between enhanced antler growth and the feeding of mineral supplements. The belief, at the time, was antler growth was all in the buck's genes. If this has been proven since then I will stand corrected, and then ask who funded the scientific study.

The ‘Bonker
 
I am going to hit this one more time.


OK, one more thing. As of a couple of years ago the QDMA could not draw a direct scientific link between enhanced antler growth and the feeding of mineral supplements. The belief, at the time, was antler growth was all in the buck's genes. If this has been proven since then I will stand corrected, and then ask who funded the scientific study.

The ‘Bonker

Bonk,
Do you have the article from the QDMA?

Not that I do not believe you but would like to read it.

Maybe it is the invention of the trail camera and other
practices I am using but I will agree to disagree until I read more
evidence on this.


Even with a lick I think the chances are minimal on these things happening
especially now that the populations are thinning out.

Just my honest opinion.
 
I am going to hit this one more time.



OK, one more thing. As of a couple of years ago the QDMA could not draw a direct scientific link between enhanced antler growth and the feeding of mineral supplements. The belief, at the time, was antler growth was all in the buck's genes. If this has been proven since then I will stand corrected, and then ask who funded the scientific study.

The ‘Bonker

While I won't agree totally that mineral supplements "enhance" any antler growth, I find it hard to believe that they don't offer anything positive to certain bucks. I'd be more interested in knowing if a supplement offers any positive effects on doe's and their offspring during a pregnancy and after birth when they're first starting out. In my mind, unless they're addicted to it like crack, most animals take in what their body requires them to for a certain purpose. Why do farmers feed supplements and lay out mineral/salt blocks for their stock? You somewhat stated my main issue with this bill when you said that when they find one case of CWD it won't matter anyway, they'll end up removing entire herds to limit the spread regardless of whether or not we've banned mineral sites. This disease has been documented in deer for over 30 years, and the banning of mineral sites throughout the state isn't going to prevent that "one" deer from making its way into the state. This bill will probably end up becoming a law, but it won't prevent the inevitable, and to be honest in my small humble opinion will only be used as a scapegoat in the future. We fight tooth and nail to prevent different bills from passing yearly not necessarily because of what the individual bill says, but to prevent related "doors" to be opened after the first ones pass. I hope everyone really thinks this bill through and understands what it could really affect in the future instead of just signing on because it seems like it's the right thing to do. For those of you about to quote my last sentence and tell me that by not banning mineral sites it IS affecting our future, please don't waste your time, I'm not buying into it. :way:
 
Bonk,
Do you have the article from the QDMA?

Not that I do not believe you but would like to read it.

Maybe it is the invention of the trail camera and other
practices I am using but I will agree to disagree until I read more
evidence on this.


Even with a lick I think the chances are minimal on these things happening
especially now that the populations are thinning out.

Just my honest opinion.

I believe ther was a QDMA magazine article on it a few years ago. I doubt if I can dig it up but I will try. I did ask the area rep at a QDMA field day a few years ago about it and he talked around the question for a minute or two then said "no effect". Also I remember a state deer biologist (could be Iowa's) stating that deer get plenty of minerals for local food sources to grow antlers.

Again Tony, I'll try to dig it up.

The 'Bonker
 
While I won't agree totally that mineral supplements "enhance" any antler growth, I find it hard to believe that they don't offer anything positive to certain bucks. I'd be more interested in knowing if a supplement offers any positive effects on doe's and their offspring during a pregnancy and after birth when they're first starting out. In my mind, unless they're addicted to it like crack, most animals take in what their body requires them to for a certain purpose. Why do farmers feed supplements and lay out mineral/salt blocks for their stock? You somewhat stated my main issue with this bill when you said that when they find one case of CWD it won't matter anyway, they'll end up removing entire herds to limit the spread regardless of whether or not we've banned mineral sites. This disease has been documented in deer for over 30 years, and the banning of mineral sites throughout the state isn't going to prevent that "one" deer from making its way into the state. This bill will probably end up becoming a law, but it won't prevent the inevitable, and to be honest in my small humble opinion will only be used as a scapegoat in the future. We fight tooth and nail to prevent different bills from passing yearly not necessarily because of what the individual bill says, but to prevent related "doors" to be opened after the first ones pass. I hope everyone really thinks this bill through and understands what it could really affect in the future instead of just signing on because it seems like it's the right thing to do. For those of you about to quote my last sentence and tell me that by not banning mineral sites it IS affecting our future, please don't waste your time, I'm not buying into it. :way:

It would be difficult at best to tell if feeding mineral supplements to does would have an effect on fawns. As has been discussed here already deer don’t use minerals as much in the winter i.e. during gestation as they do during spring i.e. lactation. Mother Nature supplies does with abundant minerals in the green shoots of spring plants. It would be a hard test to show an increase in fawn recruitment based on endogenous mineral vs. supplanted mineral. A fair comparison cannot be made between livestock and deer in this regard as deer can jump fences to get to different food sources and livestock cannot. Well, OK, I have seen some crazy cows that have jumped fences, but that is the rare exception.

Do we have a fair comparison between a state that has banned feeding wildlife and a state that allows it and both have deer herds that contracted CWD at the same time? Which one spread faster? No way to tell for sure, but if there are more opportunities to spread the disease it will spread faster.

I am not an expert in CWD by a long shot. The following may be an unfair comparison so take it for what it is worth, in fact this may be more of a question that a point of discussion, there are diseases in humans that are seasonal, flu (fall winter), croup (winter), RSV (winter spring), polio (summer), Lyme’s Disease (spring) and Typhoid (summer). Having said that, is CWD spread more during spring when deer are using mineral or fall when they are stomping on scrapes and licking on branches? Can CWD be spread more from a scrape or on a licking branch (fall) than at the bottom of a mineral lick (spring summer)? I don’t know but it is something to think about. In fact there is a disease of deer that I believe is more prevalent in deer in summer I believe it is EHD (blue tongue?) is this the one spread by flies?

As far as one case causing the eradication of deer, you indeed make my point, if one deer swims the river, escapes from a deer farm or is an illegal immigrant in Iowa, slobbers on a manmade disease transmission site and another deer licks up that slobber, it is game over because somebody just had to try to supplement the naturally occurring wildlife food available in the area. My point is to slow it down before it can reach epidemic proportion.

Let me go off on another tangent, if I don’t put out feed for wildlife, and somebody else does in another area, the DNR finds that area to be ground zero for CWD can I blame them for the spread of CWD to my area? Think domino here.

I am at a loss though, what could this bill be opening the door to? Banning food plots? Apples and oranges.

Nuthin personal Jamie, I know you and I respect you and your passion for deer and deer hunting.

The ‘Bonker
 
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Let me go off on another tangent, if I don’t put out feed for wildlife, and somebody else does in another area, the DNR finds that area to be ground zero for CWD can I blame them for the spread of CWD to my area? Think domino here.


The ‘Bonker

If I plant 3 acres of corn and soybeans and have 3 or 4 established mineral sites on my ground and a deer infected with CWD licks another deer or two can I blame the deer for the spread of CWD within my area? That's the "natural" domino effect, just the way mother nature intended it. Not trying to be a smart a$$, that's just the way I see it. The one deer that makes its way into the state doesn't have to use a mineral site to spread anything, and neither do any of the other deer that make contact with him.

It would be interesting to know how quickly CWD in Wisconsin counties spread, and how long they think it took themselves to actually discover it. I see the use of sites and cameras as a source of information, and also a early warning detection device if you will. The cameras don't have to be placed on the sites, but you'll have a lot better understanding of your densities and overall health if you do.

And yes, I would fear that food plots of a certain size could be on the chopping block as well. Really, what's the difference between a mineral site in the Summer, and a 1/2 acre turnip plot in the dead of winter when 30 deer are huddled around it fighting for scraps?

I know I'm in the minority here Bonker, thanks for not hammering me.:grin:
 
Ok, 12 pages here, I'm a bit too lazy to do catch-up (sorry for butting in on the discussion)- did this go through, did they ban minerals?
 
Bonker,
CWD didn't decimate the deer herd in WI, the WI DNR did. The same thing is true for the CWD counties in IL. This bill is pointless as there is really no practical way to stop the use of mineral. Sure you can write a few tickets, but there is no way people will clean up all the existing sites and there will still be legal livestock mineral stations everywhere else. All this bill will do is make criminals out of innocent people.
 
Check out these links and draw what ever conclusions you wish.

http://www.qdma.com/articles/details.asp?id=15

http://www.ces.purdue.edu/extmedia/FNR/FNR-194.pdf

http://www.hffinc.com/FeedingWildlife.htm


My conclusion is with good soil comes good deer and I don't think Iowa's soil is lacking. An argument could be made about the K+ and Na+ differences (sodium deficiencies) in late summer that would make a salt block an attractive idea, but the nutrients/minerals are there already.

What I would like to see, and at this point this post would probably be better in the food plots forum, would be a study not on what minerals a buck needs to grow antlers but what vitamins would help. If there is a shift of calcium and phosphorus from bone and body to antlers in the spring/summer there has to be a vitamin mediator and a person would be better off planting food plots that would make whatever vitamin (in humans I believe it is vitamin D) available to promote the transfer of body/bone Ca and P to antlers.

Not that we grow antlers, but vitamin D helps convernt serum Ca into bone. That is why women need a diet high in Ca and vit D to help ward off osteoporosis. That ends my PSA for today.

The ‘Bonker
 
Thanks Bonk,

I will do some more reading.

You might ask JNR what his findings were on his dissected antler.
 
Bonker,
CWD didn't decimate the deer herd in WI, the WI DNR did. The same thing is true for the CWD counties in IL. This bill is pointless as there is really no practical way to stop the use of mineral. Sure you can write a few tickets, but there is no way people will clean up all the existing sites and there will still be legal livestock mineral stations everywhere else. All this bill will do is make criminals out of innocent people.


OK, I may be splitting a hair here, but if CWD wasn't there the DNR would not have had to decimate the deer herd. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the play book for CWD is eradication not education.

Perhaps your point was the DNR killed more deer than CWD would have. To that I haven’t an answer, but if I lived three counties away from ground zero you bet I’d want the DNR to try to keep it from spreading to my county.

The only criminals will be the people who continue to put out wildlife feed IF this bill becomes law. While I can understand your erstwhile efforts to draw references to gun laws here, it ain't the same. Feeding wildlife is not Constitutionally guaranteed and breaking a law because you don’t believe in it might to some be a patriotic act, but to the law enforcers it is a criminal act and I ain’t gonna bet my future hunting privileges on a pile of food/mineral that may or may not be biologically useful to deer.

The ‘Bonker
 
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