4-20-12 My Reason for signing the Economic Justice Petition
This law or rather DNR (Michigan Department of Natural Resources) Regulation is giving Michigan a bad reputation nationally and internationally.
[On one Internet site, the headline regarding this issue reads: “Insane Michigan Government Announces Plan to Destroy Ranch Livestock Based on Hair Color and Arrest Hundreds of Ranchers as Felons” (http://www.naturalnews.com/035372_Michigan_pigs_farm_freedom.html)]
The DNR has authority over wildlife, not farm animals. The DNR has encroached on the responsibility of the Michigan Department of Agriculture. Unfortunately the MDA has raised no objection.
The supporters of this absurd order are all from the corporate agriculture industry, Michigan Pork Producers, Michigan Milk Producers, and the like. They are against the rights of private farms and individuals.
By definition “feral” means to have returned to the wild. Pigs on farms raised for food are not feral.
The alleged destruction wrought by feral pigs on the loose is nonsense. Across the entire state there were about 183 sightings last year, and perhaps 42 shot in the wild. Wild pigs are open season and hunters can shoot them year around. Perhaps by a stretch, Big Foot is more dangerous and has had an equally significant though smaller number of sightings (about 187 since the 1870s) reported in Michigan.
[By comparison, so I’ve heard in a video presentation by Mr. Mark Baker of www.Bakersgreenacres.com website, there were 2 million deer bagged by hunters in Michigan last season]
Pigs raised on private farms are surely not on the loose in the wild. Farmers don’t want their livestock wandering off. That would mean financial loss for the private farmer. They have good fences. Mark Baker comments in his testimony that his animals will not wander away even if the fence were to be left open because they know where their next meal will come from.
It is a terrifying thing when our own government has itself gone feral in flagrant violation of the Fourth Amendment and Bill of Rights as a whole. Farmers should not have to be in fear for their own lives, the lives of their family and children, and the lives of their livestock, and loss of their livelihood, just because corporate agriculture doesn’t like competition.