• Michigan legislators passed a bill to allow backyard deer feeding
• The practice is currently banned in the Lower Peninsula to help prevent the spread of diseases
• Even if the bill is signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, some bans could remain

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A bill that would allow Michiganders to feed deer in their backyards is sitting on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk, but, even if she signs it, the state may still prohibit some people from feeding.

Deer feeding is currently banned in the Lower Peninsula to prevent the spread of diseases such as bovine tuberculosis and chronic wasting disease. House Bill 4350, which passed the Legislature with broad bipartisan support, would allow the practice but says any feeding must align with US Department of Agriculture standards and any agreements between the state and the federal government to control the spread of infectious diseases.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources currently has memorandums of understanding with the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the USDA related to surveilling bovine tuberculosis, a respiratory disease found in animals such as deer and cattle that can spread to humans.

Even if Whitmer signs the law, “some areas of the state will be able to feed and others will not,” said DNR spokesperson Ed Golder.

“The MOU does not define a particular zone to which we’ve committed to maintaining a baiting and feeding ban, but at the time the current MOU was developed, baiting and feeding were banned throughout the Lower Peninsula,” the DNR’s deer specialist, Brent Rudolph, said. “The MOU does commit us more generally to maintaining and enforcing bans to prevent transmission of (bovine tuberculosis) between deer and cattle.”

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Baiting and feeding deer is allowed in the Upper Peninsula but in 2018 Michigan prohibited the practices in the Lower Peninsula to help limit disease spread. Hunters with disabilities can bait deer under certain circumstances. It’s OK if deer eat from a field, but in the Lower Peninsula it’s currently illegal to feed deer in a backyard, even if it’s not for hunting purposes.

“Any time you do any feeding, whether it’s a bird feeder or you’re broadcasting some seeds on the ground, and a deer shows up, at that point, you’re committing a crime,” said state Rep. Ken Borton, R-Gaylord, lead sponsor of the bill to allow feeding.

Borton, who now chairs the state House budget committee for the DNR, was motivated to become a lawmaker after he was ticketed by the DNR for feeding deer in his Gaylord backyard. He has a “Snowman Cam” livestream pointed on his birdfeeder that occasionally shows deer eating out of it. He fought the charges and they were eventually dropped.

Borton’s legislation, if signed, would allow people to feed wildlife with up to two gallons of food within 300 feet of a residence. That could be done for wildlife viewing or sustenance purposes but baiting for hunting would not be allowed. 

“A guy can’t take a five-gallon bird feeder out to his hunting blind somewhere and say, ‘Hey, I’m just feeding the birds,’” Borton said. “I wanted to make it very, very obvious that this is strictly recreational viewing for people from their home, no more than two gallons at a time, and I think that makes it very clear to a conservation officer if somebody is actually baiting or if somebody is just feeding the wildlife.”

Separate bills, HB 4445, HB 4191 and SB 65, attempt to legalize baiting in the Lower Peninsula.

Opponents worry Borton’s bill could increase the spread of another health problem affecting Michigan’s deer: chronic wasting disease.

“People that are mildly interested in wildlife think it’s innocent and simple. We’re feeding Bambi,” said Todd Johnson, director of advocacy and policy for the Michigan chapter of the National Deer Association. “It’s not safe.”

Chronic wasting disease is a neurological disease that testing has confirmed in deer in 18 Lower Peninsula counties and one Upper Peninsula county. 

“It’s a really depressing disease to watch,” said David Edmunds, a wildlife disease ecologist at Colorado State University, speaking for himself and not the university. “It’s almost like watching somebody die of cancer late in life, where they waste away … along with dementia, because they’re also not aware of their environment.”

There is no proven cure and the disease is always fatal. It’s unclear if the disease might be transmittable to humans.

Thousands of peer-reviewed studies have been conducted on chronic wasting disease. The spread goes up when deer are closer together. That’s because the disease is transmitted through animal-to-animal contact, or through prions, which are infectious proteins shed in urine, feces, blood and saliva. Research shows prions in some animals can persist for longer than a year. 

Because feed piles bring deer — and their saliva — together, they’re seen as a way to increase the spread of chronic wasting disease. Concentrated feeding sites, like bait piles, have been shown to be more likely to spread disease than food plots or landscape foraging. 

But Borton said he’s not worried about the implications of legalizing backyard feeding in the Lower Peninsula. 

“I’m certainly not a wildlife biologist by any means, and I don’t claim to be one. But I have done a lot of reading. I’ve talked with a lot of people, and that whole science behind that is up in the air,” he said.

When a similar bill passed both chambers of the Legislature in 2021, it was vetoed by Whitmer amid concerns it could exacerbate disease spread. Opponents of the latest bill hope she will veto it again for similar reasons, but Borton doesn’t think that’s going to happen.

“I was told this was all part of the negotiations with the governor and she agreed that she would sign it,” he said, though he refused to say who told him that. “That’s kind of inside information, unfortunately, that I can’t share with you.”

Asked if Whitmer planned to sign the bill, her director of communications, Bobby Leddy, said in an email, “We are reviewing the legislation.” 

She has 14 days to do so.

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