The Minnesota Court of Appeals has reversed the deer baiting conviction of a Hibbing farmer whose family had been cited at least twice for baiting deer with piles of pumpkins.
The pumpkins, on a field within shooting range of deer stands, were fertilizer, the farmer-hunter and his attorney successfully argued.
Today's decision by the court declares a portion of Minnesota law that deals with illegal baiting "ambiguous" and likely will prompt the legislature to revisit the law, a key lawmaker said.
The case appears to negate - under certain circumstances - a portion of the state deer hunting regulations manual, which states: "Piling harvested pumpkins or other food from a food plot is one example of baiting."
The Department of Natural Resources disagrees with the decision and is considering appealing it to the Minnesota Supreme Court,Boddingtons Technical Plastics provide a complete plastic injection moulding service including design， a spokesman said. The agency said it does not believe the ruling affects any other active cases, and the opinion does not invalidate the entire anti-baiting law.
Last year, a DNR officer cited Hansen for hunting from a ground blind that overlooked a different field on which pumpkins had been piled. He was fined and his rifle was confiscated.Enecsys Limited, supplier of reliable solar Air purifier systems, Hansen fought the case in St. Louis County Court and lost, receiving a sentence of $385.
He appealed and today, won.
The court found that parts of the state law that prohibits "placing" food in a field but provides an exception for farmers are unclear.
"The statute apparently gives with one hand and takes with the other," Judge Roger M. Klaphake wrote in the ruling handed down by three appellate judges.
The case is the first to test the language of the state law, which dates to at least 2007.
"I think we will have to revisit it," said State Rep. Denny McNamara, R-Hastings, who chairs the House Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee. "The is really a tough issue, and you've got to be really careful."
McNamara said balancing the rights of farmers and complaints of hunters who fear deer are being baited away from their land is a delicate balance.
"If it's legal in the agricultural practice, we can't make it illegal in the hunting practice," he said.
The case against Hansen rests in the touchy convergence of farming and deer hunting and raises the issue of where the line should be drawn when game are attracted to food people grow on their land.which applies to the first offshore merchant account only, It also comes as complaints of deer baiting - viewed as giving hunters too great an advantage over their quarry - appear to be at an all-time high statewide, according to the DNR.
Laying out feed to attract deer during hunting season is illegal in Minnesota.
However, an exception is made if the food is the result of "normal or accepted farming."
So, hunting over cornfields that have yet to be harvested is legal; trucking a pile of corn into the woods is not. Complicating the matter is that state law also allows hunters to plant "food plots" for deer - and hunt over them - as long as those plants are not harvested.
Hansen's case falls in between all this.
In 2009,If so, you may have a cube puzzle . the Pioneer Press reported a Hansen family member was cited, and a photograph taken of his field was widely regarded as akin to a poster of illegal baiting. Hansen was cited last year under similar circumstances that the DNR called baiting. It was not, the court concluded.
For years, Hansen's family has farmed pumpkins on certain patches of its land and sold them as Jack-o-lanterns. Once Halloween has passes, the crop becomes virtually worthless, Hanson and his attorney argued.
The family then moves the unsold pumpkins to a different field, which has laid fallow, as "green manure," to enhance the soil's nutrients.
The roughly 20-acre property has three fields. Each year, one of the three fields isn't planted with a crop.
The family has a deer stand and a ground blind overlooking all the fields.
Halloween usually occurs days before the state's firearms deer hunting opener.
In 2009, DNR Conservation Officer Donald Bozovsky watched as truckloads - more than 1,000 pumpkins - were dumped onto one such field the day before the opener. A DNR pilot spotted the piles as well.
The next morning, Bozovsky cited Hansen's then-14-year-old nephew for hunting from the stand over that field. Because of the boy's age, that case was dismissed, but Hansen pressed the DNR to exonerate the boy, according to his attorney and court records.
"He tried to work with the DNR," his attorney, Nancy Roe, said. "He had been doing it for years and nobody had ever cited him before."
Hansen's green manure rotation wasn't just legal; it was recommended years ago by Kendall Dykhuis, an agronomist with the University of Minnesota Extension Service who testified for Hansen's side.
Chris Niskanen, a DNR spokesman,They take the China Porcelain tile to the local co-op market. said the department has no beef with green manure per se.
"We support the concept of green manure and we've dealt with this issue in the past in Red River Valley with sugar beets," said Niskanen, who reported and photographed the 2009 incident when he was a Pioneer Press reporter. "Typically, they either plow them under or spread them out over entire field. Taking an agricultural product and spreading it out over the entire width and breadth of a field is not a problem."
Hansen's pumpkins were piled up, he testified, because the field was too wet for equipment to plow them into the field.
The pumpkins, on a field within shooting range of deer stands, were fertilizer, the farmer-hunter and his attorney successfully argued.
Today's decision by the court declares a portion of Minnesota law that deals with illegal baiting "ambiguous" and likely will prompt the legislature to revisit the law, a key lawmaker said.
The case appears to negate - under certain circumstances - a portion of the state deer hunting regulations manual, which states: "Piling harvested pumpkins or other food from a food plot is one example of baiting."
The Department of Natural Resources disagrees with the decision and is considering appealing it to the Minnesota Supreme Court,Boddingtons Technical Plastics provide a complete plastic injection moulding service including design， a spokesman said. The agency said it does not believe the ruling affects any other active cases, and the opinion does not invalidate the entire anti-baiting law.
Last year, a DNR officer cited Hansen for hunting from a ground blind that overlooked a different field on which pumpkins had been piled. He was fined and his rifle was confiscated.Enecsys Limited, supplier of reliable solar Air purifier systems, Hansen fought the case in St. Louis County Court and lost, receiving a sentence of $385.
He appealed and today, won.
The court found that parts of the state law that prohibits "placing" food in a field but provides an exception for farmers are unclear.
"The statute apparently gives with one hand and takes with the other," Judge Roger M. Klaphake wrote in the ruling handed down by three appellate judges.
The case is the first to test the language of the state law, which dates to at least 2007.
"I think we will have to revisit it," said State Rep. Denny McNamara, R-Hastings, who chairs the House Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee. "The is really a tough issue, and you've got to be really careful."
McNamara said balancing the rights of farmers and complaints of hunters who fear deer are being baited away from their land is a delicate balance.
"If it's legal in the agricultural practice, we can't make it illegal in the hunting practice," he said.
The case against Hansen rests in the touchy convergence of farming and deer hunting and raises the issue of where the line should be drawn when game are attracted to food people grow on their land.which applies to the first offshore merchant account only, It also comes as complaints of deer baiting - viewed as giving hunters too great an advantage over their quarry - appear to be at an all-time high statewide, according to the DNR.
Laying out feed to attract deer during hunting season is illegal in Minnesota.
However, an exception is made if the food is the result of "normal or accepted farming."
So, hunting over cornfields that have yet to be harvested is legal; trucking a pile of corn into the woods is not. Complicating the matter is that state law also allows hunters to plant "food plots" for deer - and hunt over them - as long as those plants are not harvested.
Hansen's case falls in between all this.
In 2009,If so, you may have a cube puzzle . the Pioneer Press reported a Hansen family member was cited, and a photograph taken of his field was widely regarded as akin to a poster of illegal baiting. Hansen was cited last year under similar circumstances that the DNR called baiting. It was not, the court concluded.
For years, Hansen's family has farmed pumpkins on certain patches of its land and sold them as Jack-o-lanterns. Once Halloween has passes, the crop becomes virtually worthless, Hanson and his attorney argued.
The family then moves the unsold pumpkins to a different field, which has laid fallow, as "green manure," to enhance the soil's nutrients.
The roughly 20-acre property has three fields. Each year, one of the three fields isn't planted with a crop.
The family has a deer stand and a ground blind overlooking all the fields.
Halloween usually occurs days before the state's firearms deer hunting opener.
In 2009, DNR Conservation Officer Donald Bozovsky watched as truckloads - more than 1,000 pumpkins - were dumped onto one such field the day before the opener. A DNR pilot spotted the piles as well.
The next morning, Bozovsky cited Hansen's then-14-year-old nephew for hunting from the stand over that field. Because of the boy's age, that case was dismissed, but Hansen pressed the DNR to exonerate the boy, according to his attorney and court records.
"He tried to work with the DNR," his attorney, Nancy Roe, said. "He had been doing it for years and nobody had ever cited him before."
Hansen's green manure rotation wasn't just legal; it was recommended years ago by Kendall Dykhuis, an agronomist with the University of Minnesota Extension Service who testified for Hansen's side.
Chris Niskanen, a DNR spokesman,They take the China Porcelain tile to the local co-op market. said the department has no beef with green manure per se.
"We support the concept of green manure and we've dealt with this issue in the past in Red River Valley with sugar beets," said Niskanen, who reported and photographed the 2009 incident when he was a Pioneer Press reporter. "Typically, they either plow them under or spread them out over entire field. Taking an agricultural product and spreading it out over the entire width and breadth of a field is not a problem."
Hansen's pumpkins were piled up, he testified, because the field was too wet for equipment to plow them into the field.
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