DNR seeks heads of harvested deer this season
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Monday, September 22, 2008 7:42 PM CDT
SPOONER — The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wants to complete its Northern Wisconsin deer health check-up this year and is asking the help of all deer hunters by providing samples from deer they harvest.
Department wildlife biologists say that assisting the department will help insure the quality of deer hunting in the north.
DNR Northern Region Wildlife Expert Mike Zeckmeister said it has been 6 years since the region has comprehensively “tested” the health of the deer herd in its 18 counties.
“While our primary heath monitoring is for CWD and Bovine TB,” he says, “we will be looking for any health concerns and issues in our deer herd.”
The goal is to sample 500 adult deer per sampling unit with most sampling units equaling one county. “This means we need to sample 8,000 deer to have a statistically significant sample,” Zeckmeister said.
Hunters willing to help with this important project should drop off adult deer heads (no fawns) at a DNR collection point. Zeckmeister says wildlife health specialists especially want heads during the early bow, youth deer hunt, and October antlerless season in Herd Control Units.
Wildlife officials realize that there may be a lower level of concern about these diseases, like CWD, in Northern Wisconsin and many hunters may not feel the need to have their deer tested.
“Hunters are confident deer are healthy, and we want to keep it that way, so we need to do a checkup on our northern deer.”
Hunters can get the results on tests on their deer. They just need to provide their name and customer identification number in addition to the location of kill. They’ll get a postcard in the mail with the test results.
The turn-around time for test results for samples collected in the early bow season will be 6-8 weeks.
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