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For the state’s mom-and-pop farm markets, party stores and gas stations that leap into the deer-bait business every fall, Tuesday’s emergency order by the state Department of Natural Resources banning all baiting in the Lower Peninsula could be a fatal shot.

“It stung me when I heard the news on the radio this morning,” said Andy Todosciuk, owner of Andy T’s in St. Johns. “In November, half our income comes from deer feed. This is one more way for the state to screw us over.”

But the loss of sales in sugar beets, field corn, carrots and apples, said Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Mary Dettloff, is small potatoes compared to what would happen if chronic wasting disease gets a grip on the state’s deer herd.

“That,” Dettloff said, “would be even more devastating.”

Continue reading at The Lansing State Journal

…It was both enlightening and depressing to read colonial accounts of invasive species, problems with monocultures, and careless application of dangerous chemicals that — save for the dates and the compounds involved — could be drawn from today’s news. Every other page will have you asking yourself, “Why are we still doing these same stupid things???”