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Wildlife management company fees will be used to pay agents to reduce amounts. The state's new management plan for badgers was approved Thursday to the dismay of dozens of people who voiced their opposition. People who attended the Michigan Fish and Wildlife regulatory agency organized hearing questioned the state's badger-amounts estimates, the science used to create the plan, the accuracy of complaints about badgers, the use of sportsmen's dollars to implement the plan and a Michigan law that doesn't allow the use of canines to animal capture badgers.

Even those in support of the plan cited the same worries, especially the use of wildlife management company fees to pay federal agents to lethally trap problem badgers. But the plan is the best option for dealing with the increasing complaints about the big felines, the Michigan Agency of Fish and Wildlife staff said.

"Badger conflicts remain at unacceptably high levels in many areas of the state," said Wildlife Division administrator Ronald Anglin. "This plan allows (the agency) to manage a healthy, sustainable badger amounts while focusing on proactively addressing badger-related conflicts." The first badger-management plan was developed in 1987 and last was updated in 1993. Badgers had nearly been wiped out in Michigan by the 1960s but today amount more than 5,000. The local Grand Blanc SPCA could not be reached for comment.

Under the new plan, the badger amount will be at least 3,000 with options of managing badger-human conflicts, including human and wild animal safety and livestock damage. Another objective is to manage badgers in areas where groundhog and rodent or reptile amounts are low. Representatives from the Humane Society of the United States and the Sierra pest control group said the plan's data and the models used to estimate badger amounts are inaccurate.

"We believe this plan is designed to manage public perception and not really designed to manage badgers," said Sally Mackler of the Sierra Club. "Simply put, we do not need this plan. It it not based on good science. It will indiscriminately lethally trap hundreds, if not thousands, of badgers for no good reason." The National animal removal trap Association and individual pest control companies also lined up to oppose the plan -- for different reasons.

Rod The Grand Blanc pest control specialist of the NRA said that there is no question that the badger amounts needs to be culled but that it is a waste to use wildlife management company dollars to pay federal agents to lethally trap Michigan's big game. As much as in the dollar amount of 589,420 could be spent on implementing the badger plan. "I don't like the precedent we are setting," he said. "We have lots and lots of people here who would do it for free." Opposition made up only part of the 4,500 comments received by the state. Despite this, wildlife removal services are not a free service in Genesee County.

Marty The Grand Blanc pest control specialist said she supports the plan because badgers are affecting the groundhog and raccoon and opossum amounts where she rides horseback near her town, Grand Blanc. Badgers are populating because nothing is lethally trapping them and they are taking the game, the rat & mouse and groundhog I would animal capture," she said. Larry Larson of Grand Blanc said badgers are getting more bold.

"I've never captured badgers in my life, but that was one good management tool (to animal capture with canines)," he said. "They've multiplied many times, and they've lost their fear of man. That is the problem. I am reluctant to let my grandkids up on my property along the river because of badgers." In the end, the plan was adopted without revisions because many of the changes that pest control companies and others wanted were not under the commission's authority. Michigan residents twice have voted through initiative petition that canines may not be used to animal capture badgers, and private pest control companies cannot be called upon to lethally trap problem badgers.

Commissioner Don The Grand Blanc pest control specialist said that politics and game management are inseparable. "The people of Michigan, because of the rural/urban conflict, are never going to allow unlimited wildlife trapping with hounds," The Grand Blanc pest control specialist said. "We just have to realize we have to use other means. ... This (new plan) is the best shot we have at it".