Our hunting farm is in a cwd section. Roughly a half mile away, on adjoining property, the dnr is shooting deer over a pile of corn as we speak. I think they started baiting the spot just after the end of our season, and shooting commenced last week. They'll stay through March if they choose. They've been in our neighborhood on various properties for 4 years now. The herd isn't large anymore like it was prior to '12. It's rare to ever see more than 4 or 5 deer in any given field at any time. Our area is not heavily wooded like much of southern or western IL. We are basically a small creek bottom, only a couple square miles, and deer don't have many ways to filter in from. The dnr's website admits that last winter they weren't able to accomplish an aerial survey due to lack of snow. I'm pretty sure they didn't do one this winter yet either, but I can't say for sure. So they're basically just shooting deer on a whim. The meat locker we occasionally use told us last year the dnr lied. They were told the carcasses would be brought to them for processing and donating. The owners said they never saw a single one. The stories are that the deer didn't get processed at any lockers, just dumped. I cannot confirm that as fact. Dnr has stated that they killed 111 in our county last year, and they stated that one (1) tested positive. In the 4 years we've been a cwd section, with rifle toting "snipers" in the vicinity, we've been notified zero times with any information whatsoever. Never even a heads-up.
On a personal level, I think it sucks. We were really proud of the bucks we let walk this year, as were some neighbors. I even posted a couple pics in the survivors thread. Some of those bucks are probably sniped by now. I could understand it better if the herd was out of control, but in my opinion it isn't. Another factor that has to be considered is that some of the neighbors have decided to stop shooting does to help combat the sniper affect. Hard for me to make an opinion on this. My dad and I each shot does this year and allowed for them to be tested. Both were negative. Some neighbors who do shoot a doe don't allow for the testing, which I actually think possibly hurts our cause, because then there isn't mapdot for that deer kill. If the dnr doesn't see the landowners taking some deer, then they'll take matters into their own hands, like they're obviously doing.
One issue I have is that baiting is supposed to be one of the worst (best?) ways of having the disease spread. Well these guys don't sit in their tent 24/7. Their vehicle wasn't there at 8:30 am when I drove by today. So now we supposedly have sick deer eating at a pile and leaving the area to spread their sickness? And then we have individual, healthy deer with natural immunity to the disease get whacked at the pile. It's just hard to separate fact and fiction. We've all heard the stories. People swear that the insurance companies pay directly per deer killed by the dnr. I don't have proof, but I also don't trust the government, especially IL's gov't!! I basically think they want dead deer, and it's easy for them to create the studies showing why they do what they do.
Land values here remain strong. Up til now, there's probably still a line waiting to buy any land that would come up for sale. Hard to know if that'll be the case in a decade if the shooters are here for good. Families, including mine, are kinda anchored. Last year my dad and I actually were able to add on to our farm for the first time in years by purchasing 12 acres of timbered creek bottom.
Three years ago while hunting I had a very sickly deer wander past. Not sure what it had. It's the only sick one we've seen. Trail cams have taken tens if not hundreds of thousands of pics in the past several years, with nothing other than what I'd describe as 100% healthy looking deer. Pretty much all I can say.
.... IMO CWD will continue to spread in IL and at some point a decision will have to made to either follow WI's model of relaxing the eradication efforts or put an end to quality deer hunting in IL.
