Deer Baiting Across The U.S.
Posted by MikeAdams on October 14, 2008
With all the buzz surrounding deer baiting in Michigan since the CWD incident, I wondered just how many states in our great 50 allowed baiting of deer. This was no easy task to find out! I was amazed at just how hard it was in some of the state hunting regulations to find out if baiting of deer was legal or not. Some states make it next to impossible to know if it is allowed, I had to read carefully on a lot of these guides to understand the law and regulations. Some are vague and some are bold in their explanations. I would tend to think that this issue would be spelled out in great big bold letters so it would cause no confusion. Boy was I wrong!
After a careful search of the guides and a few emails to friends in states that I couldn’t get clarification, I came up with the list of baiting states and those that don’t. Out of our 50 states there are 22 states that allow baiting of deer for hunting purposes in either the whole state or in selected parts of the state. The remaining 28 do not allow it at all. In the 22 states that allow baiting of deer for hunting, 14 of them allow it state wide, the remaining 8 allow it only in limited areas.
Here is the list that I came up with, now if I have mis-spoken or mis-stated the states listed please email me or comment and I will do further research on this issue. I could have mis-understood the rules and regulations.
No Bait Allowed:
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming
Baiting Allowed In Entire State:
Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, New Hampshire, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Washington
Baiting Only In Selected Areas:
Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin
Looking at the results there is 56% of the states that do not allow deer hunting over bait what so ever, and if you combine the limited baiting to that, it only leaves 28% of the states that allow it state wide. Half of the states that allow deer baiting for hunting have either had CWD in their state or in an adjoining state that has CWD found in it. Three of those states, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Utah have had cases of CWD in their states. Of the states that allow partial baiting, only Florida does not have CWD or boarder a state with CWD. This conclusion comes from the CWD cases map on the CWD Alliance website. Baiting and CWD have not been positively connected as one causing or promoting the other. With that being said, scientists do concur that baiting does help spread CWD, or at least the absence of baiting helps to stop the spread of CWD.
I guess what we can draw from this is that only three states with CWD currently still allow baiting on a statewide scale and the states of Michigan and Wisconsin have limited the areas you can bait in. It looks as if the states that are dealing with CWD are either limiting the bait or stopping it all together. I don’t know what the answer is, but I did think this was an interesting look at where baiting is being allowed and where it isn’t as compared to Chronic Wasting Disease in the cervid populations in the U.S. Look at the map and draw your own conclusions, it is now up for debate!
Really.. there is not much to talk about. It is all going to be a wait and see what happens this year. Will there be any CWD found in free ranging deer? Will the harvest numbers go down? Will the number of hunters go down?
I think a very important idea has been left out of the debate. While many “expert hunters” have crawled up on their soapbox and proclaimed eureka… hunters will have to go afield, scout, still hunt, change up there tactics due to the baiting ban. They have left out the idea that much of what happens in Michigan during firearms deer season is a harvest..a culling of the herd..not hunting by their definition. With that said I believe that the DNR is wrong and we will see less hunters and less deer harvested this season.
Like I said above..we’ll just have to wait and see….
October 14th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Important info for deer hunters Mike. Thanks for doing the research for them. Now, about squirrel baiting…
October 14th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Very interesting information there Mike. Thanks for taking the time to dig into this a little bit.
I am still amazed at how short-sighted people are with their thinking about this baiting ban. Sure, it might effects farmers now, and mom and pop shops, but what would be the long term effects if CWD spread like wildfire and wiped out the herd?
Some great info you shared. Good work.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Chronic wasting disense alliance web site.
FAQ: ?How is CWD Spread: Answer: It is not known exactly how CWD is transmitted. After reading more on there site I came away with food plots are worse. There statement Contaminated pastures appear to have served as a sources of infection in some CWD epidemics. Food plot would be a pasture ware deer gather.
October 14th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
So more intresting is how is Kansas,Utah, and Oklahoma doing.
October 14th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Robert, I do agree with you that this will decrease numbers in the harvest this year. It goes against what the DNR wants, reduced deer herd populations. As for hunter numbers, I think a lot of the hunters have already bought tags, but whether they hit the field or not remains to be seen.
Garch1 I understand your position on the food plots, but what do you suggest we do with agricultural fields? How are you going to address the farmers who have a field full of corn that deer are eating and depositing droppings and prions in that field? There is no way to enforce and distinguish the difference between a cash crop and a food plot. The DNR cannot enforce this. These are all interesting issues that will have to play out this season and be dealt with. That is what makes this issue so complicated and emotional. Everyone has a vested interest in it.
October 14th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Intereting…funny how the states that allow baiting only Kansas is known for big bucks…I wanna be known as a master hunter not a master…well I won’t go there!
October 15th, 2008 at 5:04 am
There are a few things that DNR is at fault which isn’t helping the situation at all. One is that they should be using the media to get information out to the hunters as to what is going on, what they know, and their reasonings behind what they are doing. Why they are not I don’t understand. With the bad public image that they had before all this I and fully well knowing how people would react to the baiting ban I would think that they would want to do evething they can to not make it worst. The other mistake they have made in my opinion is that they should have put the ban on for the whole state in stead of just the lower. I half wonder if the reason that they didn’t put a ban on in the UP is because they have already ruffled hunters feathers up there with new deer hunting restrictions.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:36 am
I am a Michigan resident but hunt on a family farm in Missouri where baiting is not allowed. I have never had a problem filling my tag there. Last year during firearm season 215,000 deer were taken in MO.
MI hunters will have to go through an adjustment period and change tactics. I am sure success will come to those who are willing to go through the effort.
Good Luck
October 15th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
[...] that I have Great Interest In! The first blog that I researched and decided to discuss is Deer Baiting Across the U.S. by Mike Adams. In Mike’s blog he decides to discuss how in certain states of the U.S. placing [...]
October 15th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
baiting is not allowed. the camp want to test hunters how good they really are without using those baits. hey, how about dummies?
June 20th, 2009 at 5:16 am
FYI – Hunting Deer over bait is only allowed in the lower half of South Carolina. Baiting is still illegal in the upper Piedmont area.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:05 am
There is nothing wrong with baiting for deer it you stop baiting then no food plots, farmers need to fence in all fields with what deer will eat. Deer go where there is food and whether you want to beleive or not deer get together in food plots, farmers fields, under oak stand, under apple trees, in gardens, any of them could cause illness in deer. People who own land pay taxs and should be able to hunt it. Grant it I do not think you should throw out pick up loads but 10 to 15 gallons is not much. There is nothing wrong with baiting in the UP.
Zip from the UP
March 9th, 2010 at 3:45 pm