[Magdalen] Snowing now

[Charles Wohlers]

Doesn't matter - still against the law. There was a guy up in Coles Pond in 
Walden who put out a feeding tray in back of his house so he could put up a 
webcam of all the critters (bear and deer, among others) who came to it. 
Fish and Game found out and sent a cease & desist, plus forbidding him to 
even feed the birds for a month.

The problem is, that feeding wild animals like deer teaches them that people 
= food. It's like the bears in Yellowstone & Yosemite - they can become real 
pests and aren't so wild anymore. After the deer eat the windfall apples 
(which in itself is OK), once the apples are gone, then they'll eat whatever 
else they can find on your property - like your ornamental plants. Deer and 
bear can be real pests, and, when you intentionally feed them, they become 
more of a pest. Also, even if you aren't baiting them, once they associate 
people and houses with food, it becomes much easier for hunters to kill 
them.

My problem is that I have small apple trees, and the deer will eat the twigs 
& branches in the winter, severely disrupting the tree's growth. Once the 
trees are mature, it's not a problem. They also eat stuff in my garden in 
the Fall, but a fence will take care of that.

Chad Wohlers
Woodbury, VT USA
chadwohl at satucket.com



-----Original Message----- 
From: Grace Cangialosi
Sent: Friday, November 28, 2014 5:50 PM
To: Magdalen
Subject: Re: [Magdalen] Snowing now

I'm not sure it's considered baiting unless you're actually hunting them.  I 
have lots of deer here, but I don't allow hunting on my property,  so if I 
put out something for them--which I don't--I think I'd be fine.

On November 28, 2014, at 3:23 PM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:

We have an apple tree that we don't take care of. The deer like the fruit
and we're happy they do. The only problem is that it's a little close to
the road. In heavy bearing years, I have been known to gather up the
windfalls in a bucket and deposit them at the back of the yard by the track
the deer normally follow. I don't suppose this would be construed as
"baiting", nor would the placement of a salt block up in the woods, which
we did a couple of years back. It's also near their normal trail and I
suspect is visited by other critters as well.