VirginiaBuckMaster

Virginia has a new law that states you cannot feed deer after Sept 1 through the new year. Reading further they state the action of feedeingas a possible link to "Chronic Waste Disease".

Here is a link to their rationalization. My question is this....how is corn from a feeder different on the ground than from ears left behind after the harvest. I respect the biologist but do not understand the rule for it is not factual.

Anybody have any idea about this??

http://www.dgif.state.va.us/hunting/cwd.asp#How_is_CWD_spread

VirginiaBuckMaster

Well here is part of my answer:
http://www.cwd-info.org//pdf/FeedingDeer.pdf

The deer feeding causes unnatural concentration.

Criggster

The corn is spread over a much larger area in a cornfield than around a feeder, and the deer can roam around over a larger area to feed unlike a feeder where they must eat in the same small area day after day. I'm glad to see this regulation; because, we have problems with people baiting deer in our area. In the past three years two people have been cited for hunting over bait (corn). This gives the wardens a chance to write two tickets one for feeding deer and one for hunting over bait!

the kidd

if that law was were i hunt we would be pisseed

buckmine

I wish many of us would realize that hunting a wild animal is rewarding. And that providing that animal with food grown from the ground is alsorewarding.

bow27

I wonder why they never specifically mention minerals licks? I would think they are a lot worse than supplemental feeding.

1sagittarius

In most states, mineral blocks, salt, salt blocks, are considered bait.

bow27

They are considered baiting but you can still put them out the rest of the year. Here in NY they made feeding deer illegal, not just baiting.

SwampCollie

If you are in an area where the deer are not being fed, or baited, it is much easier and much more enjoyable to hunt them au naturale. But, as I found out in SC, if you are hunting deer that are being fed everywhere else, there is little incentive for them to hang around where you are at, unless there is food about (read: corn piles). Now, this doesn't apply when the acorns fall, but with the massive #s of deer, and the turkeys and squirrels and wood ducks, the acorns are gone within two or three weeks. Once the crops are cut, deer are looking for corn piles, and if you aren't baiting or running dogs, its usually luck if you kill a deer. And half the time, they are heading for a corn pile and you just got in their way!

whitetailsoldier

I Live in MCHENRY COUNTY!! BIG TIME CWD
That is a great question. Ive heard everything in between. But they all seem to point to and overpopulation in the herd and "force feeding" Nature has enough oppurtunity for forage. Food plots are different than feeders as well!!