The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will propose a four-month ban on the practice each fall.

SUGGESTED HEAD: DEER FEEDING:

By Sam Cook

Forum Communications Co.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will propose a four-month statewide ban on recreational deer feeding each fall, from Sept. 1 through Dec. 31, a DNR enforcement official said Friday.

The proposal is being made as part of a larger effort to reduce the amount of illegal deer baiting happening in the state, DNR enforcement officials said. The agency hopes to have a bill introduced in the Legislature sometime next week.

“This is part and parcel of our effort to head off the increased deer baiting problems around the state,” said Rodmen Smith with the DNR Division of Enforcement. “It levels the playing field. It’s easily understandable.”

The board of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association has supported just such a feeding ban, said Mark Johnson, MDHA executive director.

“Our board has discussed it thoroughly and the last two years has voted to support [a four-month ban], primarily to help discourage deer baiting,” Johnson said.

By banning recreational feeding of wild deer, a hunter can’t claim to be merely feeding deer when he or she is actually baiting, Johnson said.

Several exceptions would be made to the ban, Smith said. They include:

r Bird feeders within 50 feet of a building, provided the feeder is for nongame birds.

r Bear baiting by a licensed bear hunter.

r Bait used by a licensed trapper for trapping.

r Any normal agricultural practice.

In addition to the four-month ban on feeding, the proposal would stiffen consequences for baiting. Anyone caught baiting deer would lose his or her deer-hunting license at the time the violation is written. Upon conviction, the hunter would lose big-game hunting privileges for a full year. If a hunter was convicted of deer baiting again within three years, he or she would lose big-game hunting privileges for three years.

It’s hard to say whether such a bill would pass.

“It’ll definitely be controversial,” Johnson said. “A lot of people feed deer.”

Last fall, the DNR received 800 baiting complaints, according to enforcement officials. Conservation officials issued 152 citations and made 93 weapon confiscations for archery, firearms and muzzleloader seasons.

Sam Cook is a reporter at the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune, which is owned by Forum Communications Co.