Bluestem Prairie had predicted at mid-day on Monday in Turn in a poacher: after years of pro-captive deer & elk inaction on CWD, Daudt tries to own policy that a couple of Minnesota House Republicans try to poach a bill that Jamie Becker-Finn tweeted about on Thursday.
Unfortunately for Greg Davids, R-Preston, and Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, the origin stories for their bills don't match up.
The Daudt creation story
In Fatal deer disease poses 'beast' of a problem for Minnesota lawmakers, Forum Communications capitol writer Dana Ferguson reports:
House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, last year asked scientists at the Minnesota Veterinary Diagnostic Lab to push forward on a test to detect CWD. And in an email shared with the Forum News Service, the lab’s director said that was the “catalyst” to getting the ball rolling on meaningful research.
Daudt and Rep. Greg Davids, R-Preston, as well as Becker-Finn and a bipartisan group of lawmakers filed identical bills Monday appropriating $1.8 million for University of Minnesota scientists to move forward with the test.
“It just made sense to me that we could diffuse the situation or diffuse the animosity between the DNR and the cervid farmers if we could actually test these animals to find out if they have it or not," Daudt told the Forum News Service on Thursday, Feb. 7.
It's curious that the director cites Daudt as the origin of the notion of creating a test to detect CWD, since Jerry Torrison, Director, University of Minnesota Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, was at a meeting of the Board of Animal Health on April 19, 2017 that included many of the stakeholders in the world of cervid production where this exchange took place:
. . . Dean Compart asked where the expertise on CWD in the U.S. is coming from. Mr. Olson stated that Dr. Haley has done a lot of genetic testing on CWD herds and has been on hand to collect nasal, blood and rectal biopsy samples at many herd depopulations. He stressed the importance of a blood test to detect CWD, which Dr. Tracy Nichols is developing. If the disease is caught early, those animals can be separated out from the rest of the herd, avoiding depopulation. There is also a national elk research committee that is doing testing in the area of cervid disease resistance.
Tracy Nichols is a molecular biologist in the Management of Ungulate Disease and Damage project at the National Wildlife Research Center, and she's not the only scientist who's been working on the concept. But hey, maybe former car salesman Daudt came up with the idea of a live test.
We'd like to know at what meeting, on what day, Daudt pitched the idea of developing a live test. Surely, either or both men keep copies of their schedules. Right?
The Davids Creation Story
The Ferguson story obviously was pitched by Team GOP no later that last Thursday, given that fulsome email Torrison sent to the reporter (it's not an email by Daudt sent in 2018, carefully readers will note). So it's curious that yet another version of the bill's origins emerges in the version iteration of the CWD live test narrative in Rochester television reporter Shannon Rousseau's dispatch, Fight against CWD in deer continues at the State Capitol,which was posted at 7:11 p.m. on Monday:
University of Minnesota researchers met with Rep. Davids in January with an idea: give them $1.8 million in funding to develop a CWD live test so they can test deer while they’re still alive. Deer are currently tested when they’re brought in by hunters, already dead.
“If we can develop a test, that’s a step forward. It doesn’t totally solve the problem, but we have to take every step we can.” Davids believes everyone in St. Paul wants to find a solution to the problem, but the issue is how to go about it.
However, Rep. Becker-Finn has a similar bill to Davids regarding the $1.8 million in funding for the University of Minnesota, but Davids insists the bill was his idea since university researchers approached him about it earlier this year. Davids introduced his bill in the House last Thursday. Becker-Finn was supposed to introduce hers Monday.
Oh? So now the researchers came to Davids with the idea, and the Davids-Daudt bill was introduced last Thursday. Unfortunately, that's not what the House page
There's the Davids-Daudt bill, HF966, which has only two authors, and the Becker-Finn bill, HF984, that's bipartisan--with Davids and Lueck as co-authors, along with 17 others. Both were introduced Monday. according to the Minnesota Legilature's webpage, Introduction of House Files 2019 - 2020:
All House Bill introductions from current bienium
House File Numbers 919 - 1064, introduced on Monday, February 11, 2019 PDF
House File Numbers 763 - 918, introduced on Thursday, February 7, 2019 PDF
Perhaps that's why no one gave Rousseau the bill numbers, bless her little heart.
What's more, Monday's story on Rochester's airwaves contradicts yet another version of the GOP bill's creation, that was aired last Thursday night on Rochester television station KAAL-TV.
In Lawmakers, U of M Researchers Hope Live Tests Will Slow Spread of CWD we learn:
As Minnesota works to slow the spread of chronic wasting disease in the state's deer population, researchers at the University of Minnesota think they've found a solution to a significant hurdle relating to testing deer for the disease. Now, they're asking lawmakers to give them the money to make it happen.
There's also last Friday's press release sent by the House Republican communications staff on the behalf of Greg Davids, R-Preston, Rep. Davids authors bill to develop test for chronic wasting disease.. . .state Rep. Greg Davids (R-Preston) wants to see more done to avoid needlessly thinning the wild deer population to test the animals for disease.
He and House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt (R-Crown) are working on a bill that would provide $1.8 million in funding for research and development of the live test, a process Skinner expects will take around two years and a number of researchers to fully develop. If it's successful, it could be replicated elsewhere.
Placebaiting the deer test: Davids feeds a fantasy
There's one additional piece of Republican talking point boilerplate in the Rousseau story: she lets the Preston lawmaker bash Becker-Finn as an metro meddler:
Becker-Finn told reporters she’s not at a point where she would consider eliminating deer and elk farms, but the idea isn’t off the table. “We’re not at that point yet, but clearly the things we’re doing right now aren’t working. So things need to be beefed up.”
That suggestion is something GOP Rep. Greg Davids of Preston thinks is too premature. “She’s a metro legislator getting into a rural issue, and I don’t think that’s the answer,” he said.
We're scratching our head about how Davids came to be a co-author of Becker-Finn's bill, if that's what he thinks.
That's not an opinion shared by members of Southeast Minnesota's deer hunter association, Bluffland Whitetails. In July, the Rochester Post Bulletin's Eric Atherton reported in Bluffland Whitetails marks anniversary, honors legislator:
. . . on this night, it was Becker-Finn who received the biggest accolades.
John Zanmiller, a BWA member who donates his time to lobby at the Legislature, said the first-term legislator got BWA’s attention simply by asking questions other legislators preferred to avoid.
“People are terrified of the letters ‘CWD’ at the Legislature,” Zanmiller said. “No one would say anything. But there was one legislator — other than Rick Hansen, of course — who would come to committee meetings and ask, ‘When are we going to talk about CWD?’”
Zanmiller said that question was not well-received by the Republican leadership, which tends to listen to the northern Minnesota-based Minnesota Deer Hunters Association.
“You could see veins popping out of the committee chairman’s forehead when she did that,” he said. “How could a legislator from the northern suburbs, from the minority power, dare to say those three letters? Because she was showing courage, saying ‘We have to make a decision.’ Right, wrong or indifferent, we need to act, because inaction is worse than doing the wrong thing.”
That courage earned Becker-Finn the Bluffland Whitetails Association Outstanding Legislator Award for 2018.
“Who would have thought that our newest best ally grew up around Cass Lake in northern Minnesota and now represents the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities?” Zanmiller said.
Plus there's that map of where the big game hunting license holders live--as Becker-Finn has long insisted, deer hunting is a One Minnesota passion:
We'll dig up some photos in the morning of Becker-Finn joining participants in one of the special hunts in the CWD zone in Davids' backyard. Did he show up to learn about the DNR's efforts to fight CWD? Not that we've seen.
Rep. Rick Hansen, DfLS. St. Paul, who grew up in Fillmore County and hunts on the family farm he now owns with a brother, tweeted:
Same tired old metro bashing. It’s 2019! 🦌@jbeckerfinn actually hunted in SE MN & talked to real hunters. Did He go to public meetings or visit DNR sampling station? How will he test live wild deer? 🦌The GOP will protect the captive deer farm industry at all costs. ⌛️🦌🌎
— Rep. Rick Hansen (@reprickhansen) February 12, 2019
Image: Turn in Poachers. Thanks to Dan Feidt.
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