DNR, hunters work to reduce deer population
 No comments posted.
By ROBERT IMRIE
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, November 20, 2008 8:52 AM CST
WAUSAU — For the first time, nearly all of Wisconsin is under some form of hunting regulation designed to kill more whitetail deer. Roughly one-third of the state is again zoned where hunters must shoot a doe first to qualify to bag a buck.
“The deer herd is still a good deal larger than established population goals in much of Wisconsin,’’ said Keith Warnke, a state Department of Natural Resources deer expert. “It is probably the most extensive herd-control season that we have implemented.’’
The state’s tradition-steeped, nine-day gun hunt opens just before sunrise Saturday for more than 600,000 hunters. The DNR estimates up to 1.7 million deer roam the fields and woods, some 100,000 fewer than a year ago when hunters in all seasons killed more than 520,000 deer.
The only part of the state with deer management units designed as “regular’’ this fall, meaning there are no special incentives to shoot more deer, is in far northeast Wisconsin.
Twenty of the state’s 131 deer management units rate that designation. The rest are either under herd control, earn-a-buck or chronic wasting disease regulations put in place to encourage hunters to shoot more female deer.
For example, in management regions designated as herd control, hunters get a buck license, a free tag to shoot an antlerless deer and can purchase more for $2 each.
Hunters in a regular unit just get the buck tag and there’s a limited number of antlerless tags, each costing $12 for resident hunters and $20 for non-residents.
The 31 earn-a-buck zones stretch from far western Wisconsin through several counties in the central regions to extreme eastern Wisconsin. Hunters there are required to shoot a doe to qualify to shoot a buck, and according to Warnke, tens of hunters have already done that, some last season.
“It’s a two-season deal,’’ he said.
Ed Harvey, 55, of Sheboygan, who has hunted deer since he was 12 and is a leader of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, which advises the DNR on outdoor issues, said hunters don’t like all the herd-control rules but many have become more tolerant of them.
A resumption of the four-day antlerless-only hunt in October has helped, he said.
“We have demonstrated that we are capable of knocking those numbers down.’’
Saturday’s opening is one of the latest possible, so deer likely will be finished breeding, meaning they will be less active, and that will be on the minds of many hunters, Harvey said. “Most people would consider it to be bad.’’
For more than a decade, Wisconsin has had more deer than the DNR’s management goal. It creates problems with crop damage, more car-deer crashes and changes in forests’ ecosystems.
“We need to have a pretty large reduction in our deer population,’’ Warnke said.
Doing that sooner rather than later becomes more imperative given some societal trends, he said.
“All of our analysis and data from hunters tell us that the number of hunters is probably declining a little bit now and will decline substantially in the future,’’ Warnke said. “If we are going to continue to keep hunting important and relevant to society and out there in the forefront of proper ecosystem management, then we need to be able to manage the deer herd with hunters. And if we have too many deer, we won’t be able to do that.’’
Last season, the DNR sold 641,432 licenses to gun hunters, down nearly 8,500 from three years ago. The drop continued a trend of an aging hunting fraternity. In 1999, nearly 700,000 licenses were sold for the gun hunt.
As of last Monday, the DNR had sold 376,166 gun licenses for this fall’s season, up 25 percent compared with a year ago, said Diane Brookbank, the agency’s licensing director.
She attributed the dramatic jump to a four-day October hunt that had more people buying licenses earlier.
“We have no indication that sales will be significantly less this year as a result of the economy,’’ Brookbank said.
Warnke listed three reasons why far northeastern Wisconsin remains the lone area with just normal deer hunting regulations.
—The habitat is not as good for deer as in northwestern Wisconsin. “Different forest type. Older forest type. More hard woods,’’ he said.
—A severe winter from Ashland to Ladysmith and east of there killed some deer and caused fewer healthy fawns to be born.
—There’s more hunters in northeast Wisconsin, leading to more deer being killed.
Wisconsin holds the record for most deer killed in a single year — 616,000 in 2000. Michigan holds the next two spots — 545,000 in 1999 and 542,000 in 2001, Warnke said.
“The deer are out there, but I think a record is very unlikely,’’ Warnke said about the 2008 hunt.
The 2000 season had more deer, more hunters, an early start so deer were breeding and actively moving around and there was snow on the ground across much of the state, he said.
“It was perfect,’’ Warnke said. “The planets were lined up.’’
|
Archives