UPDATE: At the Star Tribune on Monday evening, Tony Kennedy reported that Todd Miller is Majority Leader Jeremy Miller's brother. Check out CWD found on prominent deer farm in Winona County.
Todd Miller didn't returned the Star Tribune's request for comment either, so this poor country blogger isn't alone on this. [end update]
On August 5, Bluestem Prairie at the conclusion of our post MN Board of Animal Health: CWD confirmed in quarantined Winona County captive deer herd:
We can only pray that the CWD on this Winona County captive deer operation isn't close to any of the deer farms associated with Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller. Readers may recall how Ricardo Lopez reported for the Minnesota Reformer last May, Senate majority leader’s family ties to deer farming under scrutiny in CWD vote.
It's a terrible, always fatal disease.
As we were working on that post, a source in Winona County contacted by Bluestem said that the deer farm in Winona County was indeed operated by a Miller family member. We have been working to confirm that information, and emailed Todd Robbins Miller to ask if it were indeed his farm that was described in the Board of Animal Health press release.
A look at the personal Facebook page of Todd Miller reveals that the herd is indeed connection to the Miller family. On August 5, Todd Miller posted this message on his Facebook page:
On August 6, Miller posted this opinion over a shared post that isn't available for public viewing:
The full text of the post:
This is what I’ll miss the most. Watching what I created, watching them go. These were two 2yr olds, two yrs ago out of my breeder buck called Handsome. He scored 460 inches, but was a pretty 460. As you can see In the picture, he gave me both beautiful typicals and nontypicals. In all my yrs of breeding Handsome produced the biggest bucks I’ve ever raised. Gona miss these animals. Over Cwd, CWD is all over southern MN in the wild, but being I’m a deer farmer with a positive test, and farm in MN, I have to kill them all. WHY because MN legislators made it a law, but other states don’t do this. BUT NOTHING is done about the wild CWD!!! CWD is a political disease. It’s a money grab for the DNR, to get and waste millions of taxpayers dollars. WITH NO END GAME!!
DO YOU PEOPLE SEE THE BIG PICTURE HERE????
PEOPLE NEED TO WAKE UP!!
With all the heartache and frustration, and that I’m not liking what is happening to me, I’m working with MN BOAH and USDA to make this as smooth as possible. ITS A MINNESOTA LAW!!! and this is all so wrong.
It's worth noting that the Board of Animal Health sent out the press release, and the BOAH shares oversight of deer
While Miller states that "NOTHING" is being done about CWD in the wild herd, Tony Kennedy's reporting in the Star Tribune story, DNR will shift monitoring statewide after chronic wasting disease case turns up in Grand Rapids, told a different story:
. . ."This new discovery doesn't make CWD a statewide problem, but it does mean we need to take more of a statewide approach,'' said Kelly Straka, wildlife section manager for the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
Until now, the DNR has taken management actions to fight CWD by area, wherever and whenever the disease is detected. The tactics in those zones have included mandatory testing of hunter-killed deer to track the disease. In addition, the DNR organizes extra hunting to thin local herds. As part of the same playbook, the department bans deer feeding and attractants in areas where CWD is found. Deer can transmit the disease to each other when they are in close contact.
Straka and DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen said in a news release Tuesday that the agency will investigate options for all Minnesota deer hunters to test their doe or buck with a self-mailed kit. Until now, testing has taken place at staffed locations within special CWD zones or by visiting a self-service testing station in those areas.
The conventional testing method requires tissue from a dead deer, so hunter participation has been crucial. To enhance and expand that surveillance, the DNR said it will improve the current design for self-service stations and widen its tissue sampling partnership with taxidermists to cover the entire state.
Since 2002, the DNR has tested 106,000 deer statewide and 153 have tested positive. Most of those cases occurred in southeastern Minnesota, where fewer than 1% of deer have tested positive for CWD. With recent findings of CWD on a defunct deer farm northeast of Bemidji and now in a wild deer in Grand Rapids, there are eight general areas where CWD has been detected. . . .
As for other states' (and those of Canadian provinces) rules about dealing with CWD and captive deer farms, we recommend the Michigan DNR's page, CWD and Cervidae regulations in North America, last updated in October 2021. Here in South Dakota, the Game, Fish, and Parks Department notes in CWD Wasting Disease: What's Being Done:
The Animal Industry Board (AIB) established specific requirements after CWD was first diagnosed in private, captive elk herds to prevent further introductions or recurrences in private, captive elk and deer herds. All captive herds that were infected or exposed have been depopulated, and a voluntary cervidae (deer and elk) CWD surveillance and control program for captive cervids is now being implemented.
So CWD positive captive herds were "depopulated," as the euphemism goes. It's not politics, it's a disease.
Why is this concerning? It seems that attempts to pass one measure regulating deer farming became very political in the Minnesota Senate under Majority Leader Jeremy Miller's leadership.
On May 6, Ricardo Lopez reported for the Minnesota Reformer, Senate majority leader’s family ties to deer farming under scrutiny in CWD vote:
During a recent debate on an agricultural budget bill, Sen. Karla Bigham, DFL-Cottage Grove, won five votes from GOP colleagues to amend the bill and impose regulations on deer farms to combat chronic wasting disease, including a moratorium on new operations.
It was an unusual show of bipartisan support for a DFL-led amendment in the GOP-controlled Senate, illustrating the deep concern of many hunters and their allies in the Legislature about the disease that threatens the deer population.
Soon after the amendment passed, however, the Senate recessed at the urging of Majority Leader Jeremy Miller. When they returned, they watered down Bigham’s amendment.
What Miller didn’t say on the Senate floor: His brother Todd owns a deer farm and a hunting preserve in Winona called Epic Antler Ranch, which bills itself as “Minnesota’s #1 Whitetail hunting destination.”
Bluestem had hunted on that trail a bit before the much more skilled Lopez took up the hunt.
In late April, Bluestem Prairie reported in Senate DFL Leader Franzen raises conflict-of-interest concerns in Republican leader's role overturning bipartisan vote to protect wild deer:
After a bit of sleuthing in online business and property records, we've learned that Todd Miller is the contact person for Epic Antler Ranch a private hunting operation with headquarters at the address 26005 Blackberry Rd, WInona, MN 55987.
Looking into Schneider Corporation's Beacon database for Winona County, we find that 26005 Blackberry Road was purchased by Wm. Miller Scrap Iron & Metal Co in 2006. According to Majority Leader Miller's EIS, Miller is a Director, Officer and Owner of Wm. Miller Scrap Iron & Metal Co.
According to the information for the address, the Primary Taxpayer is S & T Acres LLC at 265 6th St. W in Winona. Six parcels are listed in the parcel results for S & T Acres LLC. The name of the manager of S & T Acres LLC in the Secretary of State's Business Record Details is Susan M. Miller. This name appears in parcel results with that of Jerome Miller and Jerry Miller.
In 2014, the Winona Daily News' article in A family affair with scrap, the cutline under the photo at the top of the article reads:
Miller Scrap in Winona is led by, from left, Jeremy Miller, chief financial officer, Todd Miller, co-yard supervisor, Jerry Miller, president and CEO, and Willie Miller, chief operating officer.
Down column, the copy notes:
Jeremy’s brothers, Willie and Todd, also ended up back in the business after “a few ripples in the water,” Jeremy said.
Are these land ownership, business connections and family relations enough to constitute a conflict of interest on the Majority Leader's part? It is a close family.
We're not certain if Todd Miller and Todd Robbins Miller are the same individual, but the man in the photo at the personal Facebook page of Todd Miller is wearing a Miller Scrap hat and is associated with deer farms that share a business address with Miller Scrap.
On May 1, 2022, we posted in Update: More on Miller family deer farm interests:
Last week, we posted Senate DFL Leader Franzen raises conflict-of-interest concerns in Republican leader's role overturning bipartisan vote to protect wild deer, in which we explored Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller's family business interests in a Winona area deer farm and hunting preserve.
A reader let us know that we'd missed one important connection: Miller's brother [we're working to ascertain whether this Todd is the politician's brother or another family member] Todd's leadership roles in the Minnesota Deer Farmers Association.
We've posted a screenshot at the top of this post of the "Minnesota Deer Farmers Association--BOD's [Board of Directors] from page 21 of Upper Midwest Whitetails, a trade publication for deer farmers in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. On page 2 of the publication, however, a list of state deer farmer association president includes Rich Meech, who runs a deer farm at a Menahga address.
The publication is posted on the frontpage of the Minnesota Deer Farmers Association webpage; we've downloaded a copy since we assume a new issue will fill the space at some time.
But Todd Miller's leadership in the Minnesota Deer Farmers Association isn't limited to 2021-2022. ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer page of data for the Minnesota Deer Farmers Association included IRS filings from 2009 through 2019; for 2013 forward, Propublica list the names of officers on the filings.
According to this IRS data, Todd Miller is listed as President in the 2016, 2017 and 2018 filings, while he's listed as Vice-President on the 2019 filing. We checked earlier IRS filings on the ProPublica site and he was not listed as an officer of the Minnesota Deer Farmers Association before the 2016 IRS filing.
Todd Miller's leadership in the Minnesota Deer Farmers Association led to another opportunity: a place at the table in the Board of Animal Health's Farmed Cervidae Advisory Task Force, beginning in 2018. In a January 2018 "Animal Bytes" item, Seeking members for task force, the BAH notes:
. . .the Board would benefit from input from the following stakeholders:
- Accredited veterinarians working with farmed cervids.
- Minnesota Elk Breeders Association.
- Minnesota Deer Farmers Association.
- A farmed cervid producer at large (not a member of either organization above).
- A farmed cervid producer that provides hunting of farmed cervids on their premises.
- A farmed cervid producer that raises non-native cervid species (ex. reindeer, muntjac, red or fallow deer).
- Minnesota Department of Natural Resources staff.
- USDA Veterinary Services staff.
The Task Force is limited to 15 members for a duration of two years or less, as described in state statute. . . .
Minutes for two meetings--June 25, 2019 and August 6th, 2019--include Todd Miller as an alternate for the Minnesota Deer Farmers Association. As we noted, the task force was limited in duration.
At the Board of Animal Health, next came the Farmed Cervidae Rulemaking Advisory Committee, which was "formed to develop recommendations and provide the Board with advisement while drafting its rule amendments" (page 4). Serving on this committee:
- Representative of the Minnesota Deer Farmers: Rich Meech; Alternate: Todd Miller
Looking through the minutes of this committee, we find that Todd Miller "Todd Miller, Registered Farmed Cervidae Producer" made comments as a member of the public at a the first meeting on August 26, 2020, though we are unable to find his comments in the detailed minutes.
The next meeting at which Todd Miller appears in the minutes is November 13, 2020. Here's the passage in the minutes:
Todd Miller, Vice President of Minnesota Deer Farmers Association addressed Dr. Larsen stating, “Every article states urine, feces, saliva and now carcasses can contain infectious prions, why not include blood when considering which fluids can spread CWD?”
Peter Larsen confirmed that CWD prions can be detected in blood.
Mr. Miller followed with a question, “Then why doesn’t the DNR ask hunters to pick up carcasses being left all over the landscape?”
Peter Larsen reiterated that a positive animal will have prions in blood.
Mr. Miller commented, “the legislature gave you guys [MNPRO] a bunch of money which will be reevaluated this spring; is a live animal test going to be ready?”
Dr. Larsen stated that thanks to the legislature Minnesota has RT-QuIC functionality, which is a live animal test, in the research lab. He added that validation with USDA will take time and that MNPRO will be submitting three different provisional patents for approval. Dr. Larsen reiterated that his lab has a research focused test that can evaluate samples from live animals.
The Farmed Cervidae Rulemaking Advisory Committee last met on January 22, 2021. There's this passage in the minutes:
Todd Miller, a non-committee member and cervid farmer, identified his farm as currently under quarantine as a CWD-infected farm. He stated he has had almost 40 of his animals tested for CWD in the past few months, and all results have been CWD not detected. The quarantine restrictions are still in place, and his business cannot function. Dr. Wheeler said that the Board needs to differentiate between “exposed” and “suspected,” as this is a difference that people do not understand. Mr. Miller agreed.
Dr. Glaser said Mr. Miller’s herd is part of an ongoing CWD-positive investigation, and the herd is quarantined following the CWD program standards from the USDA for the investigation. This is a separate situation outside of the rules. If a herd is exposed, the Board would quarantine it and follow the program standards to follow through.
According to a source who replied on background--who was in the room--when we asked about the passage in the minutes:
At one of the meetings of the BAH's Farmed Cervid Rulemaking Advisory Committee . . . Todd Miller interrupted (not during public comment time) to begin the rant I believe you are referring to, he had to identify himself and was cut off by Dr. Linda Glaser due to his involvement in a quarantined cervid farm she stated.
We'll see if we can obtain an audio or video archive of this meeting.
Related posts:
Images: Todd Miller (top); Facebook page posts about depopulating his deer herd.
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