Welcome to Michigan, where the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) gets to micromanage what wild animals you can feed in your own backyard – while simultaneously tearing out dams, wreaking environmental havoc, and throwing roadblocks in front of animal rescuers actually trying to save wildlife.

How does this happen? Under long-standing law, wild animals are classified as a public resource even when they’re wandering through your own backyard. Michigan law also grants state agencies sweeping police powers in the name of protecting public health, agriculture, and ecosystems, whether those powers are exercised carefully and constitutionally or not. In short, the Michigan DNR’s authority flows from the state’s claimed ownership of wildlife, authority delegated by the Legislature, and repeated court approval – not from the consent of the landowner footing the tax bill.

For now, feeding birds and squirrels in your yard isn’t a felony (give it time). Deer, however, are strictly off the menu. The theory appears to be that if you hang a sign in your yard, deer will politely read it, understand the regulation, and respectfully decline any food you left out.

Under Michigan rules, you’re not allowed to intentionally feed deer at all – and the state gets to decide whether you’re a harmless backyard naturalist or a full-blown deer-baiting mastermind. There’s no magical way for a deer to explain their snack choice and there isn’t a way for you to be able to keep them out of your “squirrel” food.

The Michigan DNR bans feeding of deer because they believe one backyard buffet can trigger a statewide crisis – spreading diseases like chronic wasting disease (CWD), turning deer populations into an overbooked waiting room, boosting car-vs-deer collisions, and luring deer out of their natural migration patterns and straight into farmers’ fields.

At the end of the day, this is the absurdity Michigan homeowners are left with: you’re responsible for enforcing wildlife regulations against animals that don’t understand them, on land you actually own, under rules written by an unelected bureaucracy. Welcome to Russia.