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The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has 

added five counties to its deer feeding ban,

 which prohibits putting out food or other attractants to reduce the spread of chronic wasting disease.

MPR News host Clay Masters spoke with David Trauba, the wildlife section manager for the DNR, about the history of the ban and how it is enforced.

The following has been edited for length and clarity. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

What is the history behind the ban and why was it put in place?

The ban goes back close to 20 years now, and it's really one of our major tools that we use to reduce the spread of chronic wasting disease, and it's not only a feeding ban, but it's also an attractant band. So, the way I look at it, any time you put out food for deer, they are going to come to it. 

And it's not just one family group of deer, you might have multiple family groups of deer coming into that concentrated area, and that has the potential to spread chronic wasting disease across the landscape. So, whenever we have a positive detection in a new area, that's what brings and triggers these additional counties coming in underneath the attractant and feeding ban.

The ban is in place in 37 of the state's 87 counties. What counties have been added to the list, and why are those on it now?

The new counties are Becker, Clearwater, Grant, McLeod, and Meeker counties. Those new counties came in because we had three additional positives within those areas. And when we have that new positive detection. You draw the radius, and if it clips those different counties, that's when we bring them into the fold, if you will. 

That's where we have our enforcement officers. We do a lot of education. We take pride in our website making folks aware of the deer feeding and attractant ban and we had targeted outreach in these different areas. It's kind of an all hands on deck process to get the word out on this. 

I think as an agency, we've been really clear that we don't encourage people to feed wild animals at all. They are very capable of surviving in their natural environments on their own, they don't need supplemental feeding, especially when you have the risk of chronic wasting disease. One deer leads to five deer, then you got 10 deer showing up, and that's just a really good vector mechanism for spreading chronic waste and disease.

I think that's something that our enforcement officers would take user discretion on. If it was baiting deer during the hunting season it might be different than someone else that was just wasn't aware of the ban and likes watching deer in their backyard. So, I think it really comes down to officer discretion.

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The ban is intended to help curb the spread of chronic wasting disease, David Trauba, the wildlife section manager for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, told MPR News.

Five counties added to DNR's deer feeding and attractant ban

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