Currently the law in regards to the 450 foot safety zone reads....

(6) An individual shall not "hunt" or discharge a firearm within 150 yards of an occupied building, dwelling, house, residence, or cabin,or any barn or other building used in connection with a farm operation, without obtaining the written permission of the owner, renter, or occupant of the property.

Currently, in Part 401, there is no specific definition of "hunt", and to most participants it is somewhat self-explanatory, hunt is hunt and trap is trap.

The current wording in the proposed change in legislation is more restrictive for trappers by definitively including trapping to the safety zone restriction. The proposed change further defines "hunt" as it is used in the licensing section, and will require a trapper to obtain written permission from all property owners with an occupied dwelling within 450 feet from a placed trap.

The proposed change is as follows...

(6) An individual shall not hunt, ("or discharge a firearm"-is removed) as that term is defined in section 435050 (is now added), within 150 yards of an occupied building, dwelling, house, residence, or cabin, or any barn or other building used in connection with a farm operation, without obtaining the written permission of the owner, renter, or occupant of the property.


324.43505 Definitions; H to N.

Sec. 43505. (1) "Hunt" and "hunting" mean to pursue, capture, shoot, kill, chase, follow, harass, harm, rob, or trap a wild animal, or to attempt to engage in such an activity.

Full text for the bill can be located by following the link below.

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2015-2016/billintroduced/House/pdf/2015-HIB-4154.pdf
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In reality, hunting and fishing are activities that due to their relatively secretive nature are, with honesty and integrity, highly self-regulated. Unfortunately, for any number of reasons, there are those in society who will not follow the rules.

I would guess it does not apply to ADC work. As most ADC work already takes place where hunting and trapping are already not allowed

While I am not crazy about the wording of this new bill for you Michiganites, there are a lot of laws that really come down to

interpretation. The truth of the matter is that I violate the letter of the law almost daily by transporting animals in my vehicle

that there is a closed season on. I have asked about this a couple of times and told that since there is really no other way of

moving animals or carcases, common sense would prevail if there was ever a question. I would hope that the people who enforce the

laws in Michigan would use common sense as well. This law was not written with the intent of making life miserable for you ADC guys

but I'm not so sure about you fur trappers. Since Michigan is like the ADC capitol of the world, I expect to see some more input on this.

Hope the MTPCA can get the wording changed but the NRA are the ones pushing this bill and they don't wish to change the wording . If not guess start packing range finders and permission slips

Does Mich. have ADC Regs. separate from fur trapping? We are bound by the trapping Regs. like trap size etc. But under ADC are given permission to transport and hold for 48 hrs. Also what we must do with the animal.
Just curious, each state is so different.

Kurt Temple

Yes.

Well look who's back. Hey Dave, if Pesky is a free trapper, would that make you a costly trapper?

I'm glad we are only 150' in Ohio. I would spend 1/2 my day knocking on doors!

Note from are mtpca president . I had a talk with the NRA Rep and they are not going to take any action on this with the present bills. I was told that they would look into it and possibly help us with a separate bill to address our issues. The NRA thinks that this issue is to controversial and could derail the present bills.

I did have a discussion with Assistant Chief Molnar and he is looking to see if doing or about to do damage or something else would allow for some trapping to be done without permissions as these talks progress I will keep you posted.