Mississippi has bill to open up deerfarming

Mississippi SGRA Members and Friends,

We are poised to achieve a major milestone in our effort to bring Mississippi into the deerfarming world.



The bill SGRA sponsored this year in the legislature was debated in committee today and will be put to the floor for a vote this week. If you want to be able to buy and sell WT deer in the very near future in Mississippi, you need to contact every senator you can and let them know you want their support on this bill. Without letters and phone calls, these senators will not have any incentive to support our legislation.



So get busy and help mold your future! Tell everyone you know to call and email these senators as well. The more support they hear from us, the more they will support our cause!



Please get involved!!!!!



Just a sneak preview on next year's agenda..............SGRA will attempt to get the WT deer industry under the authority of the MBAH, not the MDWFP.



Hang on everybody we are going to be able to play with the big boys in our industry soon!



Scott Heinrich, Exec. Dir. SGRA





Senate Bill 3089

(COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE)

AN ACT TO PROVIDE A MINIMUM ACREAGE SIZE FOR WHITE-TAILED DEER BREEDING PENS; TO PROVIDE THAT OWNERS OF PERMITTED WHITE-TAILED DEER ENCLOSURES MAY SELL OR PURCHASE WHITE-TAILED DEER FROM OTHER PERMITTED ENCLOSURES WITHIN THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI; TO AUTHORIZE THE COMMISSION ON WILDLIFE, FISHERIES AND PARKS AND THE DEPARTMENT OF WILDLIFE, FISHERIES AND PARKS TO CONTINUE TO REGULATE PERMITTED BREEDING PENS UNDER SECTION 49-7-58.4; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.



BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:



SECTION 1. (1) (a) A permitted breeding pen for white-tailed deer shall not exceed a total confined area of five (5) acres. A permitted breeding pen shall be doubled fenced and comply with the regulations for breeding pens under Section 49-7-58.4.



(b) The commission and the department shall not require a minimum acreage for breeding pens greater than five-acre limitation established under this section.



(c) The commission and the department shall not require that a permitted breeding pen for white-tailed deer must be contained within a minimum number of contiguous acres.



(2) The owner or operator of a permitted white-tailed deer breeding enclosure or permitted high-fenced white-tailed deer enclosure may sell, purchase and transport white-tailed deer to other permitted high-fenced enclosures and permitted breeding pens within the state.



(3) Except for the restrictions in this section, the commission and the department shall continue to have power to regulate permitted breeding pens under Section 49-7-58.4.



SECTION 2. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 2010, and shall stand repealed on June 30, 2010.

I was in a hurry last night when I posted the news and forgot to mention some folks that really helped us alot. They are Schawn Schafer from Nadefa,Will Ainsworth from Alabama Deer Assoc. and Bill Holdman from Whitetails of Louisiana. Yesterday these folks testified before the MS Senate wildlife committee in favor of this bill. As expected, the Ms Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks Commission (who presently regulate the industry in MS) are very oppossed to the motion and vowed to try to kill it before the house committee so we are gearing up for a huge fight if the bill gets through the senate.



SGRA would like to thank Shawn, Will and Bill for their support. This is a shining example of our associations helping each other for the good of our industry.

The website than has the contact infor for the MS Senators is at the attached link.

http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/members/s_roster.pdf



If you want to copy the emaiol addys of all of the MS Senators, I have included them as well to copy and paste in your to:box



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Will,

It is SGRA that got the bill introduced through Senator Jackson. Much of my/our work was up front and since I am working a job I couldn't get to the meeting, those mississippians who attended were in constant contact with me before during and after not only Monday's meeting but the subsequent follow up session where Sen. Gollott resurected the bill after Cindy Hyde-Smith tabled it. There is much about Ms politics that is unseen and handled best over a steak with a good glass of wine.

Richard,

I believe that all states that allow deer farming should have open borders to encourage competition. The semen sales will be about the same regardless of the status of a state's borders. The ability to buy and sell deer freely in this country is (in my opinion) an inalienable right just as the right to buy and sell cattle, swine and equines. If you don't believe the open borders will promote competition, just try to buy a run of the mill WT doe in Alabama. Tell me a doe with no pedigree is worth what they are getting for them there. Alabamains who want to get into the industry can't afford to buy stocker WT's for the prices they are getting. In addition the regulations there are restrictive enough that new deer farmers are almost impossible to find.

There is more to our industry being highly regulated than CWD or any other disease. DNR's do not want to give up the power they have when it comes to deer. They can't see beyond their proverbial noses. They truly believe they can regulate us out of business and their hunting license revenues will rise.

Brandon,

WT deer in Mississippi have always been considered a state resource and therefore are property of the state. "Deer Farms" do not now, nor have they ever existed legally in MS. Enclosures have been legal for exotics, but native WT only deer enclosures were not allowed. Having said that, some people with generally large acre tracts erected high fences, some for the addition of exotics, some just so they could manage the natural deer herds on their property. In 2005 the MDWFP passed legislation giving them the right to regulate these private enclosures. Their regulations prohibited any enclosures less than 300 acres for WT deer. This caused people with smaller enclosures 40-299 acres to have to remove the WT deer from their enclosures. So deer farming (breeder operations) could not exist. In 2006 the SGRA was able to get regulations changed that allowed breeder operations inside permitted 300+acre enclosures. In addition, we also got the right to AI deer within these breeder enclosures. After a couple of rounds of AI the next natural question was who owns the AI offspring? This started a firestorm with the outcome in favor of the deer farmer. Since Ms is a closed border state, we were able to to get regulations that allowed transfer of deer between permitted enclosures. However, the sale of deer in MS was still prohibited. The bill we are speaking about here would allow sale of WT deer from one enclosure to another and allow small (5ac) breeder enclosures to be legal. Now the small enclosures will be able to buy from the large enclosures, thus that is how they would get their deer, until we can get the borders open later on down the line. We are approaching this challenge with a "baby step" mentality. Confused yet?





Will,

I'm glad to hear AL is beginning to grow its deer industry. You say "1.)fastest growing agriculture industry in the state". Did you guys get the regulatory agency changed to agriculture? I thought the dept. of conservation regulated the WT deer indutry in AL. Congrats if you did!



I believe the exotic folks over there are having a time getting new permits because the dept. of conservation isn't issuing any more non-indiginous species permits. Is that true?



I am a little confused as well as to how AL's cwd program works too. I understand it is administered by the state Ag dept, and a brand new deer farmer will be able to get a CWD accreditation of 7years after April of this year. Explain how that works, I too would like that to be something we try to achieve in Mississippi.