Baiting In Alberta

[catnthehat]

Originally Posted by CBintheNorth

Seeing how Cat has bowed out, allow me to inform you that there may not be anyone here that can make sense of this post.
And insulting a well respected man is suicide here.

Oh believe me when I say this CB, that I have not bowed out of this thread, I have simply quit responding to that particular poster.

I seem to recall another couple who tried to tag team me a while back and were banned, one came back and has wisely quit early, they other. well, who knows.

Cat

[bb356]

Originally Posted by mmiddlemiss

I am fairly new to reading all these threads, so I am sure that this topic has been discussed before.

I am wondering what everyone's thoughts/comments are if Alberta legalized baiting deer?

I am not saying that I want this to happen or that I would agree with it, just wanted to know where everyone else stands on this topic.

If I had too stoop to baiting to shoot a deer ... I'd quit hunting !!!

[pikeslayer22]

Originally Posted by ishootbambi

its the old thing ive been saying for years....dumb mules vs smart whitetails. even a guy with a proven track record and a full time job hunting cant cosistently produce a giant whitetail....but no problem with the donkeys.



its hands down my favorite show on wild. you might be easier to impress than i am though. the team is somewhere around 14 members if i recall. on each of their first two seasons, i have seen several real good bucks taken, with a couple truly great bucks to boot.

i know of a few single albertans that do no use bait whose past 14 years could be described every bit as good or better. ill say it again....pouring a bucket of grain on the ground is no magic pill for killing a big buck.


as for the whole cwd discussion.....i cant believe there are so many uneducated hunters given the half dozen multi page threads that have shown all the facts known about the disease on this forum. i wont bother again. anyone who doesnt have the facts by now doesnt want to be bothered to learn them.

Well I am sure you have at least seen the Sask hunting forum, if not go have a look. They had a trail cam picture contest going that runs around 40 pages, it's pretty awesome. Most of the pictures are on huge bait piles with blinds set up close. The majority have before and after pics posted, from velvet to hard horned to dead. Question for you ISB if its -20 below end of November a buck is run down from the rut and as most big bucks are mostly nocturnal. He has to eat and needs high protein food to get him through the winter. His choices are a bait pile in th middle of 320 acres of bush that he fed on all year or a wide open 160 acre field where he has to make his self vulnerable during daylight hrs. Which one do you think he. Will go to? I agree baiting is not a sure thing but done correctly I would say it increases your odds signifacantly!

[Speckle55]

It should remain illegal in Alberta and elsewhere

Manitoba and Sask Gov and Parks Canada did a study that talks about how Baiting and Artifical feeding of Deer increases the transmission rate of all diseases

please read this fully and then read some of the reference material

its the bottom report also please read on CWD and other diseases,, also read at SRD site

and understand Transmission patterns that WHO uses to track the spread


thanks

Food for Thought

David

http://www.cwd-info.org/index.php/fu...ources.baiting

http://srd.alberta.ca/FishWildlife/W...s/Default.aspx

FAIR CHASE STATEMENT
FAIR CHASE, as defined by the Boone and Crockett Club, is the ethical, sportsmanlike, and lawful pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild, native North American big game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper advantage over such animals.

The Boone and Crockett Club condemns artificial and unnatural enhancement of a big game species’ genetic characteristics

[reddeerhunter]

Hey CB and Cat in the Hat, seriously?? This is an opinion thread. I f you dont like what you are reading stop reading. It is really that simple.

[November Rain]

Originally Posted by catnthehat

Don't waste your breath CB, if you check their posts, these two are just trying to start and argument by getting a rise out of someone, it's not working wiooth me and I doubt if it will work with your either.
Cat

Thats exactly what I was going for whenever I cited safety as a big reason for baiting. Good call cat, you keep strengthening my belief that you're a complete moron. Time to get off the computer (16k posts????), put that goofy ass hat on, and go spend time in the field so you actually have some experience with the stuff you argue about. I respect a well thought argument and I like people that disagree with me. But everytime you post, I laugh at your stupidity. Do yourself a favor and save face: stop posting.

[NIKON]

Originally Posted by CBintheNorth

Sooo I've been trying to follow but without assuming, I can not figure out what exactly is the point you are trying to make.
Is it that
1- cwd isn't a threat
2- cwd isn't a big threat
3- some info regarding cwd is wrong
4- all cwd info is wrong
5- cwd has nothing to do with baiting cervids?
Or
6- none of the above.

If you chose 6, there must be at least a 2 paragraph explanation-single spaced.

CB
The point I'm trying to make is , The information out there re cwd is it fact or alot of ass u mee........ Is cwd a threat in Alberta, don't know..... Is some of the info re cwd wrong, I question it and challenge it...... Does cwd have anything to do with baiting cervids?...... You tell me, I don't buy the arguement.....Is cwd spreading like cancer at an alarming rate as suggested?.... I don't buy that at all, are we just submitting more heads? and Are we just testing further from the border and it appears it's spreading....
Now Do you have the answers to these questions?

[CBintheNorth]

Originally Posted by NIKON

CB
The point I'm trying to make is , The information out there re cwd is it fact or alot of ass u mee........ Is cwd a threat in Alberta, don't know..... Is some of the info re cwd wrong, I question it and challenge it...... Does cwd have anything to do with baiting cervids?...... You tell me, I don't buy the arguement.....Is cwd spreading like cancer at an alarming rate as suggested?.... I don't buy that at all, are we just submitting more heads? and Are we just testing further from the border and it appears it's spreading....
Now Do you have the answers to these questions?

Thanks for the reply....but that was only one paragraph.

I'm going to assume, yes assume, that you haven't read a lot of the links provided by several posters. The reason I say this is because most of the questions you have are answered within them. All of it backed up by science and empirical data.

[ShawnM]

I think there's a pretty big difference between deliberate baiting and ambushing prey at a known feeding location.

We camp nearly every weekend in the winter and this year we've dropped a salt lick in the woods and set up a trail cam. We thought it would be interesting for the kids to see the pictures. Is this considered baiting?

[catnthehat]

The fact remains that I doubtr very much that the poeple making the laws are going to be looking at the stats as much as the lobby groups that eiter want or do not want baiting to be allowed in alberta.
The best way to do this is to get in touch with one's lobby group , be it the AFGA, ACA, etc, and express you opinion - but do it in a civilized way, not siting instances of "crazy truck hunters" and "salt likck in the middle of corn fields", etc.
Cat

[CLB]

I am from sask and do not bait. I do not believe that CWD is a big concern with baiting. The highest prevalence of CWD is in mule deer and very, very few people are baiting for mule deer as they don't seem to come to bait with any predictability. My biggest problem with baiting is that when guys throw up bait pile they quite quickly think no one else should be hunting any where near there. I have even heard guys say that no one should be hunting within a square mile around their bait. Guys like me who don't bait leave very little sign when we have been hunting in an area, all of a sudden a guy moves in and throws up a couple baits and he expects to have the whole area to himself even though their has been other guys hunting the area for many years. Every body talks about wanting to get more people out hunting but then in the next breath want sole access to large tracts of land so they can bait and not have anyone else around. Baiting will close off more access to land than anything will. A guy argued with me that when I sit a waterhole I am baiting just like he is. My response was that if I came up to the waterhole I was hunting and someone else was there before me I would look for another place to hunt. What do you think his response to me would be if he came up to me at his bait pile and I was sitting there first? With the large numbers of hunters you have in Alberta and outfitting on private land I think you would quickly find less and less places to access if baiting were ever made legal.

[catnthehat]

Originally Posted by CLB

I am from sask and do not bait. I do not believe that CWD is a big concern with baiting. The highest prevalence of CWD is in mule deer and very, very few people are baiting for mule deer as they don't seem to come to bait with any predictability. My biggest problem with baiting is that when guys throw up bait pile they quite quickly think no one else should be hunting any where near there. I have even heard guys say that no one should be hunting within a square mile around their bait. Guys like me who don't bait leave very little sign when we have been hunting in an area, all of a sudden a guy moves in and throws up a couple baits and he expects to have the whole area to himself even though their has been other guys hunting the area for many years. Every body talks about wanting to get more people out hunting but then in the next breath want sole access to large tracts of land so they can bait and not have anyone else around. Baiting will close off more access to land than anything will. A guy argued with me that when I sit a waterhole I am baiting just like he is. My response was that if I came up to the waterhole I was hunting and someone else was there before me I would look for another place to hunt. What do you think his response to me would be if he came up to me at his bait pile and I was sitting there first? With the large numbers of hunters you have in Alberta and outfitting on private land I think you would quickly find less and less places to access if baiting were ever made legal.

Unfortunetlloy, I have heard the same arguments from bear hunters when it comes to the baiting debate, they sem to think no one should be allowed t hunt be anywhere around a baited area. I don't bait bears either.
Cat

[Speckle55]

Originally Posted by ShawnM

I think there's a pretty big difference between deliberate baiting and ambushing prey at a known feeding location.

We camp nearly every weekend in the winter and this year we've dropped a salt lick in the woods and set up a trail cam. We thought it would be interesting for the kids to see the pictures. Is this considered baiting?

That would be classed as baiting as per regs

Food for Thought

David

BIG GAME

It is unlawful to
1.set out, use or employ any of the following items for the purpose of hunting big game: •ammunition of less than .23 calibre,
•ammunition that contains non-expanding bullets,
•an auto-loading firearm that has the capacity to hold more than 5 cartridges in the magazine,
•a shotgun having a gauge of .410 or less,
•a shotgun in a bird sanctuary,
•bait, except as permitted for the hunting of black bears (click here for more information on Black Bear baiting),



DEFINITIONS

The following definitions will help you understand these regulations:

Antlered - a white-tailed deer, mule deer, moose or elk having an antler exceeding 10.2 cm (4 in.) in length.

Antlerless - a white-tailed deer, mule deer, moose or elk that is not "antlered" (as defined above).

Bait - any substance that consists of a food attractant, including mineral and any representation of a food attractant.

[NIKON]

Originally Posted by CBintheNorth

Thanks for the reply....but that was only one paragraph.

I'm going to assume, yes assume, that you haven't read a lot of the links provided by several posters. The reason I say this is because most of the questions you have are answered within them. All of it backed up by science and empirical data.

CB
I don't know what your problem is , and don't care
I'm posting to get some answers from a few of the more informative posters
If you can't answer my questions then don't respond , I can't find numbers of heads submitted from one year to the next to correspond with the numbers of cases increasing..... I also don't buy the arguement that the disease is spreading from the border when we only submit testing from the border zones
I read the map submitted showing the new cases and it doesn't give number of heads submitted ...... That's why I'm asking if the disease is spreading or are we just testing further into alberta........ If you have the answers , I welcome your response, if you don't have a nice day cuz i won't stoop to your level for sake of arguement ..........

[catnthehat]

Originally Posted by Speckle55

That would be classed as baiting as per regs

Food for Thought

David

BIG GAME

It is unlawful to
1.set out, use or employ any of the following items for the purpose of hunting big game: •ammunition of less than .23 calibre,
•ammunition that contains non-expanding bullets,
•an auto-loading firearm that has the capacity to hold more than 5 cartridges in the magazine,
•a shotgun having a gauge of .410 or less,
•a shotgun in a bird sanctuary,
•bait, except as permitted for the hunting of black bears (click here for more information on Black Bear baiting),



DEFINITIONS

The following definitions will help you understand these regulations:

Antlered - a white-tailed deer, mule deer, moose or elk having an antler exceeding 10.2 cm (4 in.) in length.

Antlerless - a white-tailed deer, mule deer, moose or elk that is not "antlered" (as defined above).

Bait - any substance that consists of a food attractant, including mineral and any representation of a food attractant.

Only wen hunting , Speck, I think Shawn was talking aout ater the season is closed.
Cat

[Speckle55]

Originally Posted by NIKON

CB
I don't know what your problem is , and don't care
I'm posting to get some answers from a few of the more informative posters
If you can't answer my questions then don't respond , I can't find numbers of heads submitted from one year to the next to correspond with the numbers of cases increasing..... I also don't buy the arguement that the disease is spreading from the border when we only submit testing from the border zones
I read the map submitted showing the new cases and it doesn't give number of heads submitted ...... That's why I'm asking if the disease is spreading or are we just testing further into alberta........ If you have the answers , I welcome your response, if you don't have a nice day cuz i won't stoop to your level for sake of arguement ..........

here is the site you should watch and you can see it is spreading ...hope this helps if you have any questions i will try to help

there is randon heads submited all over Alberta and one year they asked for heads for Peace River area because a carcass was dropped off before the test came back postive

If you have questions just call 310-0000 and ask for Margo Pybus she is our expert in Alberta and can answer most questions or refer you

David

http://www.srd.alberta.ca/FishWildli...May18-2012.pdf

http://www.srd.alberta.ca/FishWildli...s/Default.aspx


Dr. Margo J. Pybus
Wildlife Disease Specialist
Alberta Fish and Wildlife Division
6909 116th Street
Edmonton, AB T6H 4P2
780-427-3462
Margo.Pybus@gov.ab.ca

[ShawnM]

Originally Posted by catnthehat

Only wen hunting , Speck, I think Shawn was talking aout ater the season is closed.
Cat

Yessir, that is exactly correct. We did wait until after hunting season even though hunting in this particular area would be illegal. We've had a few whitetails come by the lick so far but I think the other game animals will catch on.

[whitetail Junkie]

Originally Posted by mmiddlemiss

I am fairly new to reading all these threads, so I am sure that this topic has been discussed before.

I am wondering what everyone's thoughts/comments are if Alberta legalized baiting deer?

I am not saying that I want this to happen or that I would agree with it, just wanted to know where everyone else stands on this topic.

Im Against Baiting in Alberta.

The Main reason why bait is allowed in saskatchewan is to accomadate the american whitetail hunters who are restricted to the Forestry zones.

[Speckle55]

Originally Posted by catnthehat

Only wen hunting , Speck, I think Shawn was talking aout ater the season is closed.
Cat

i think its illegal by Canadian Law to feed Wildlife but i could be wrong .. Federal Trumps Alberta

Food for Thought

David

[NIKON]

Originally Posted by Speckle55

here is the site you should watch and you can see it is spreading ...hope this helps if you have any questions i will try to help

there is randon heads submited all over Alberta and one year they asked for heads for Peace River area because a carcass was dropped off before the test came back postive

If you have questions just call 310-0000 and ask for Margo Pybus she is our expert in Alberta and can answer most questions or refer you

David

http://www.srd.alberta.ca/FishWildli...May18-2012.pdf

http://www.srd.alberta.ca/FishWildli...s/Default.aspx


Dr. Margo J. Pybus
Wildlife Disease Specialist
Alberta Fish and Wildlife Division
6909 116th Street
Edmonton, AB T6H 4P2
780-427-3462
Margo.Pybus@gov.ab.ca

Hey Speckle
Thanks for your response , and I can't believe I'm not getting more answers from the experts on this issue...... just alot of " We have bought into the idea"......... I'm trying to stir some response but not getting it , just links that I can't find the data .... I see a nice alberta map showing an increase in number of cases , atleast thats how I'm interpreting it.... n= x , But what's missing is the number of heads submitted from one year to the next , which I'm pretty sure is increasing and one would think it would correspond with an increase in cases found.... I don't think a few random heads submitted from the peace country is a very good indicator jmho, they killed hundreds of mule deer and whitetail deer in 234 with no traces of the disease, .... I'll keep digging and if I get to frustrated I'm gonna phone the phone number you provided.... Thanks
Nikon

[C Taylor]

I can't see how baiting is going to spread cwd any quicker. Yes when you have the flu you don't run around and spread the flu, totally agree. Now think of how far deer travel to get to a good food sorce now. I can see deer coming from miles to grain elevators in middle of winter so way I see it we have alot of deer over alot of sq miles traveling to minimal amount of feeding areas right now. Just a guess in the dark but lets say that most the deer in a 10 mile radius comes to one feeding spot. Now consider people putting out piles of grain legally, deer would not be traveling as far meaning not as much chance of meeting a new deer with diesiase. Kinda like not going to the city in flu season but stay with friends an family.
Alberta has had it illegal to bait way before any of us heard of CWD now its just a good excuse.

Originally Posted by C Taylor

I can't see how baiting is going to spread cwd any quicker. Yes when you have the flu you don't run around and spread the flu, totally agree. Now think of how far deer travel to get to a good food sorce now. I can see deer coming from miles to grain elevators in middle of winter so way I see it we have alot of deer over alot of sq miles traveling to minimal amount of feeding areas right now. Just a guess in the dark but lets say that most the deer in a 10 mile radius comes to one feeding spot. Now consider people putting out piles of grain legally, deer would not be traveling as far meaning not as much chance of meeting a new deer with diesiase. Kinda like not going to the city in flu season but stay with friends an family.
Alberta has had it illegal to bait way before any of us heard of CWD now its just a good excuse.

The thing is, deer hit multiple bait sites so the chance of transmission to new populations is actually greater as the number of concentrated feeding sites increases. It puts deer in close contact with each other that likely would not have been before.

Say for example site A and Site B are 10 miles apart.....the deer from each are unlikely to meet but throw Sites C and D in the middle of them and now deer from A and B risk exposure to whatever the other had....even if indirectly.

[CBintheNorth]

Originally Posted by NIKON

CB
I don't know what your problem is , and don't care
I'm posting to get some answers from a few of the more informative posters
If you can't answer my questions then don't respond ,..........

Glad to hear you don't care because I don't have a problem.
You still had questions that some have answered with links to most of the info you were seeking.
As for the numbers of heads submitted...I read somewhere that the total/year has actually gone down in the last two years.- I'll dig it up and post it.

[C Taylor]

No offence sheep, but this seems more of "the sky is falling" than anything. Sask has more deer, less hunters and close to the same ratio of cwd with baiting as we do with out. Is Sask getting cwd in the northern baiting areas? As I see it, there was way too many deer in the south. Too many of anything will get disiase. While the culls were going on, most cases were in mule bucks yet it took years of priority for a buck draw but you could get multiple doe tags per year was simply to get deer numbers down.
Baiting to hunt I could care less about but watching deer struggle and starve on heavy snow fall winters and not do something to help is not right in my books.

[dgl1948]

Stats from Sask
In 2001 4819 animals were tested. 1 pos MD
In 2002 5054 animals were tested 8 pos MD 2 pos WT
In 2003 5055 animals were tested 22 pos MD
In 2004 6648 animals were tested 28 pos MD 2 pos WT
In 2005 4582 animals were tested 27 ps MD 10 pos WT
In 2006 4677 animals were tested 27 pos MD 20 pos WT
In 2007 5230 animals were tested 30 pos MD 15 pos WT
In 2008 5718 animals were tested 37 pos MD 4 pos WT 3 pos Elk
In 2009 3273 animals were tested 38 pos MD 4 pos WT
In 2010 1995 animals were tested 31 pos MD 4 pos WT

Is CWD on the increase in the province, one would have to say so. The things that make stats hard to come to a conclusion on is we do not know the total of animals alive in the province each year. If 37 mule deer tested posative in a year out of a herd of 10,000 is a lot different that if 37 tested posative out of 5000. I do not know of any detailed population surveys that have been done throughout these time periods.

One of things that would seem to make one think that CWD is increasing is posative tests have come from zones as of late that had no posatives in the past. This is probably the best indicater.

The fall and winter of 2010 was very hard on deer in the province but it does show a big increase in CWD inspite of the low number of samples.

One of the reasons that mule deer infections could be higher than whitetails is they tend to be more of a herd animal. This is also a concern now that it has shown up in wild elk.

Originally Posted by C Taylor

No offence sheep, but this seems more of "the sky is falling" than anything. Sask has more deer, less hunters and close to the same ratio of cwd with baiting as we do with out. Is Sask getting cwd in the northern baiting areas? As I see it, there was way too many deer in the south. Too many of anything will get disiase. While the culls were going on, most cases were in mule bucks yet it took years of priority for a buck draw but you could get multiple doe tags per year was simply to get deer numbers down.
Baiting to hunt I could care less about but watching deer struggle and starve on heavy snow fall winters and not do something to help is not right in my books.

I guess my point is that the sky is definitely not falling and I don't think anyone is saying that baiting would cause a rampant spread of CWD but we do know for absolute fact that concentrating deer on feed where they urinate and deficate does spread disease more readily...whether that be CWD or any of a long list of cervid diseases. Why take the risk?

[NIKON]

OK speck

I called the number you have provided

It's sounds like the data is hard to come by
What I managed to get from her is from 2009-2011 the number of heads submitted remained constant and actuall less submitted in 2010 I believe is waht she said , they never added any new zones in that time but had added a few new ones in 2012
I asked her if she would call this a spread at an alarming rate, she said no not at all and it's more like a gradual creep

Sounds like they are gonna try and release more data

[pottymouth]

Originally Posted by C Taylor

I can't see how baiting is going to spread cwd any quicker. Yes when you have the flu you don't run around and spread the flu, totally agree. Now think of how far deer travel to get to a good food sorce now. I can see deer coming from miles to grain elevators in middle of winter so way I see it we have alot of deer over alot of sq miles traveling to minimal amount of feeding areas right now. Just a guess in the dark but lets say that most the deer in a 10 mile radius comes to one feeding spot. Now consider people putting out piles of grain legally, deer would not be traveling as far meaning not as much chance of meeting a new deer with diesiase. Kinda like not going to the city in flu season but stay with friends an family.
Alberta has had it illegal to bait way before any of us heard of CWD now its just a good excuse.

My understanding of cwd, is that it lives in the ground, and is transmitted through saliva, of animals concentrated in a small area. Deficating and eating on top of each other, doesn't help either. Carriers can pass down the trait to their young. We had about an hour discussion with dave the CO , up in wainwright. Having hundreds of deer in a field, is a lot different than having those hundreds of deer swap saliva from a 1x1 bait pile.

Essentially imagine if at the next hockey game, everyone had to drink out of
the same cup......

Dave also mentioned that the have proof that cwd, is traveling west on the
Nsr, the battle river and rosebud creek.

Nikon, I would get a hold of Dave at wainwright , and ask him to send you all the info they have collected over the years on that hunt. They have them posted for everyone to see, while your on the hunt.

Deer are browsers, don't forget. They won't sit and gorge themselves at one bait station. They will travel from station to station, so one infected deer could infect a bigger area than most would think. And then multiply.

Still laughing at guys who think a bait pile will stop poachers, trespassers and road warriors....funniest thing I've read on AO. If anything those guys will be checking your area and site more regularly .

[NIKON]

The other thing I found interesting when I asked about cwd found in elk farms in Alberta she said there were 2 cases found around edmonton..... One in a farmed elk and one in a farmed deer..... They did do some testing around the farms in wild deer and were not able to trace it to the wild population
How many they actually tested and how thoroughal she never said.....hmm

just more food for thought

Nikon

[C Taylor]

Lol ok potty I get what you an sheep are saying but I still think if the deer were giving a few TVs to watch the hockey game with friends and family and give them a couple cups to choose from would be less chance than them all going to the big city at one time with one cup. Got to try an put some humor in this.
Biggest thing to me is how it wasn't cwd that wiped out the deer in eastern Alberta a couple years ago. It was the deep snow lack of food, poor planning on srd an too many coyotes. Last winter the deer the deer had it easy this fall srd cut back tags but it sure looks like snow is going to be deep. I would sooner feed them thu out the winter and take a chance at disease than watch them die off like two winters ago. I know this is getting a little off the topic of baiting. But some think feeding at any time is baiting