MN CWD Hunt

[Mortenson]

Yes. How it affects the hunting depends on how good your spot is, and how close-by do you have a neighbor who'll allow the shooters in. After that 1st case, our neighbor let them in. I heard they wanted to shoot 40 that year. I think they came 3 short. Also going on at that time our local herd got clobbered by overhunting, coyotes, and EHD. So we had the quadruple perfect storm. The creek bottom that our timber is a part of isn't big, about 2 square miles which includes a lot of ag land. So we lost a lot of deer. But, it's a pretty good creek bottom, and we are bouncing back (at least I thought we were until a whole bunch of neighbors got buck happy this year). The neighbor refused to allow the shooters back after the 1st year, but they found a spot on 15 acres less than a mile away. I didn't hear how many they killed in that spot during winter of '15. My friend was hunting what used to be a big herd about 10 miles away. He was the lucky one who supposedly shot a cwd doe 2 years ago. He surrendered the meat and then watched the shooters show up with their bone-collector tent out his back window, on state ground. He heard 1 shot in 3 or 4 weeks. They're there again now as we speak. Maybe they'll finish off the last few.

I'd say that around our county, the hunters are generally very unhappy.

 

[kl9]

Did it influence land value by you?

 

[bueller]

I can speak for public land in a cwd county in northern Illinois. It's not just the sharpshooters that do the damage. It's the virtually unlimited tags that also put a serious hurt on the deer in the area. In fact when the public hunters keep the herd down so low the sharpshooters are no longer needed.

 

[Mortenson]

Generally speaking, I'd say no. If anything, I think an argument could be made that it possibly could help support land values. Not much around here ever sells. The guys with money usually clean up anything that's for sale to control more land. There's never a shortage of standing offers to buy land. We have multiple neighbors who would be buyers. I myself should have 10 more acres in a couple weeks. Just today I see an auction listing for 109 acres in my county. It's over 80% wooded, so a nice mix. Auction is 3/2. I don't know much about the area but I'll wager my guess at 5K+. Will report back.

I'll also mention our neighbors have been pretty good with voluntary restraint in regard to doe harvest since the sh!t hit the fan.

Would you eat my buck or am I playing russian roulette with my family?

 

[kl9]

I hunt in southwest WI and I test every deer I plan to eat. I would only eat a deer from a CWD infected area if I knew that it did not test positive for CWD.

 

[kl9]

Comparing the two isn't fair. Most of WI's CWD zone is in a very good agricultural area, near the Madison area...or both.

My land isn't a great ag area, and there is no "Madison" area anywhere near here. The herd here is already the size the WI DNR wanted to have in the CWD zone...but it never got close.

What about the largely wooded parcels in that region of WI?

 

[bowhunternw]

I would contend that they are similar as they can be spread by contact and live in the soil for long periods. I was just using it as an example though and how animal thinning stopped it. The Pine Island incident was however cwd and it seemed to stop the spread there.

 

[kl9]

I would contend that they are similar as they can be spread by contact and live in the soil for long periods. I was just using it as an example though and how animal thinning stopped it. The Pine Island incident was however cwd and it seemed to stop the spread there.

Did it? No one knows how CWD is now appearing in Fillmore County. 8 positives is very different than 1 and in PI there was a known infected cervid farm.

 

[kl9]

Where? The WI River bottoms?

Iowa Co area and Western Dane

 

[kl9]

Both areas are within an easy commute to Middleton and west Madison. Plenty of folks buying land in "the country" that aren't deer hunters in those areas. Nobody buying land around here that aren't hunters or farmers.

The Spring Green area has been known for years as an "artsy fartsy" area.

There's no comparison of the WI CWD zone(s) and my area. Now...there are certainly plenty of comparisons to be made between SE MN and the WI CWD zones. I wouldn't anticipate land values in SE MN being impacted for the long term.

I see. Good info

 

[bueller]

Can someone please explain the pine island cwd situation? I keep hearing it's been eradicated there. Are there geographical features separating it from the surrounding lands? Was it a wild deer that was positive? Why were they even testing deer there?

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

There was a captive elk farm in pine island that had some animals that were CWD positive. After killing the elk inside the fence, they tested wild deer around that area and had one doe test positive for CWD. They killed off a pile of deer in that area for a number of years to keep the numbers down and since then there have been no other CWD positive animals in that area. That's the abbreviated story of the pine island CWD case anyway.

 

[wiscwhip]

This ^^^^

 

[bueller]

There was a captive elk farm in pine island that had some animals that were CWD positive. After killing the elk inside the fence, they tested wild deer around that area and had one doe test positive for CWD. They killed off a pile of deer in that area for a number of years to keep the numbers down and since then there have been no other CWD positive animals in that area. That's the abbreviated story of the pine island CWD case anyway.

Thanks. But I can't help and wonder if they eradicated it from the wild herd there, or if they "eradicated" something that was never in the wild herd to begin with. Only one positive, hmmm...

 

[bowhunternw]

I do agree with you that it certainly isn't eradicated but, I also believe that it dramatically slows the spread. Maybe it buys the rest of MN 30 years maybe 100 who knows. Still the best option we got.

 

[kl9]

Why do you believe that? What evidence do you have? There is none

He probably read it straight from the Minnesota DNR website.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

I agree eliminating most of the deer slows the inevitable cwd spread, but eventually it will still arrive at some point. killing off wild deer won't mean much when game farms can transfer deer as usual and spread disease faster than it would naturally move. How many miles were covered with the recent game farm deer sale of a deer that turned out to be cwd positive? At this point there are few good options unfortunately.

 

[kabic]

What about scavengers spreading pieces of the carcass. I'm sure it happens, but not sure how far say a crow could move something.

 

[sandbur]

What about the fact that science has shown prions can be taken up by crops. Farmer A in SE MN gets timely rains this year and his alfalfa grows amazingly well. Farmer B in central MN faces drought conditions and has to buy alfalfa....Farmer A is happy to sell him some.

CWD is here to stay I'm afraid. Between deer farms, farm crops, scavengers spreading carcasses (and our DNR from the looks of a previous news story) and wandering yearling bucks...it's just a matter of time.

It's all about how many millions of dollars we spend along the way. There's a push to commit more deer license dollars to deer management/habitat. Do we really think that any such funds won't be "re-directed" for the CWD war?

I hope these funds could be designated to different areas. A certain percent o disease/feeding(fat chance on feeding anymore), a certain per cent to herd monitoring of deer numbers to prove or disprove the model and to include identifying localized pockets of deer ( hopefully so these pockets could be dealt with locally if they really are a problem instead of on a unit wide basis), another certain per cent to manage wintering areas in the forest zones and to establish them in the ag zones. We need cover to get our deer thru the worst winters. I feel each of these areas need to get their share of the license dollars. How to keep the DNR from shifting funds could be a problem.

When I say localized pockets of deer that are a problem, that problem might be CWD, might be a municipality or semi rural area which has problems, or a pocket of farms who have a problem. Widespread CWD (like we apparently have now) is NOT a localized pocket.

In the past, aerial surveys of deer have not been done as the aircraft were pulled to count moose instead of deer. Enough of that. We need funds designated for deer and designated to specific areas of management.

 

[sandbur]

I feel that herd reduction and some testing is needed with new outbreaks. It worked fairly well withthe Pine Island case. Eliminate CWD, doubtful, but it is below detectable levels and could popup in future years.

Game farms are part of the problem, but have improved their acts in the last 10 years. Have each of you hunters quit using deer scents? Do you dump carcasses in areas where they were not harvested?