When Politic Goes Bonkers over Honkers

© By Othmar Vohringer

I just got a hold of a news story that I have to share with you. It’s so ridiculous that at first I didn’t know or I shall cry or laugh my head off about it. But then I just left it by shaking my head in utter disbelieve about how downright stupid government bureaucrats can be. Sometimes I wonder if these people could pour water out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel.

Here I leave you with the article.

U.S. hunters forced to dump birds at border
By Chris Niskanen
Article Source: TwinCities.com

More than 4,000 wild game birds were snatched from American hunters as they headed home last weekend from Saskatchewan, Canada. Critics say it was an overreaction by U.S. officials to an outbreak of avian flu on a chicken farm in the province.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture misinterpreted its rules banning Saskatchewan poultry, forcing U.S. customs agents to confiscate coolers filled with game birds at border crossings during the peak of hunting season.
Mike Borchert, 70, of Le Sueur, Minn., and four friends were returning from a week of hunting in Saskatchewan on Friday afternoon when agents confiscated their 215 waterfowl at a North Dakota crossing.
"We asked the U.S. custom agents where they were taking them, and they said, 'To the landfill,' '' Borchert said. "We were dumbstruck."
On Thursday, the USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service banned all imports of poultry and "unprocessed avian products" from Saskatchewan after an outbreak of avian influenza H7N3 on a commercial chicken farm near Regina.
U.S. customs agents were told the ban included hunter-killed birds, and for at least three days, hunters were forced to give up birds at border crossings in Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota.
Hunters also had their birds confiscated at Canada airports; some reportedly opted to dump them in garbage cans before reaching border crossings.
Late Saturday night, USDA officials rescinded the order on hunter-killed birds after reviewing their protocols, but not before the damage was done.
Customs agents in North Dakota and Minnesota confiscated about 4,100 birds from hunters in 88 vehicles, with each vehicle containing three or four hunters, said Mike Milne, a customs spokesman in Seattle. All those birds are being taken to landfills.
"We've had to order extra (garbage) trucks,'' he said.
Most birds were confiscated at the Portal and Pembina crossings in North Dakota, but birds were also confiscated at Warroad, Minn., and crossings in Montana, Milne said.
A wildlife ecology professor who was hunting in Saskatchewan at the time called the USDA ban ridiculous and a waste of valuable wild game.
"Biologically, it makes no sense whatsoever,'' said Michael Chamberlain, a professor at Louisiana State University. "They were saying you can't transport a hunter-killed bird across the border, when millions of birds are migrating across the border already?"

I couldn’t agree more with the quote of Michael Chamberlain. It sums the situation perfectly up.

Read rest of article here

Tags: Canada, Saskatchewan, Waterfowl, Canada-USA Border Crossing,Avian Influenza, Duck Hunting