Wisconsin wants to suspend antlerless licenses

Swen17

Yearling... With promise
I'm all for this if they believe it's needed. The quote at the end reminded me of everyone supporting MDDI, which includes myself!!!!

Associated Press - Pioneer Press

Wildlife officials want to suspend antlerless deer hunting in the northern third of Wisconsin to help the herd recover from two harsh winters.

Department of Natural Resources officials say nearly 40 percent of juvenile deer the agency was tracking with radio collars in northern Wisconsin have died since Jan. 1.

That's up from 33 percent in 2013 and 6 percent in 2012. Adult deer mortality has ranged between 7 percent and 15 percent over the last three years.

DNR big game ecologist Kevin Wallenfang told the Wisconsin State Journal for a story Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1g5rWOd ) that the recommendation to suspend antlerless hunts would cover firearms and archery seasons over most of the 17-county northern forest zone.

Youth, disabled, military personnel on leave and tribal members would still be able to hunt antlerless deer, however.

"It's going to be a regrowth period. We've had two bad back-to-back winters," Wallenfang said. "People want to see deer. Seeing deer is the number one measure of a quality hunt for people, and they've been seeing fewer and fewer."

Wisconsin Wildlife Federation executive director George Meyer said the DNR might have to protect antlerless deer for two seasons. But he said hunters likely would welcome the restrictions in order to rebuild the herd.

University of Wisconsin-Madison wildlife ecologist Tim Van Deelen said he understands the move but doesn't necessarily agree with it.

The DNR has to respond to hunters who want a bigger herd but deaths of juvenile deer have relatively little impact on future herd size compared with adult doe deaths, which haven't increased greatly.

"Hunters agitate for more deer," he said. "People who wouldn't be activists about anything else will crawl out of their hospital bed and crawl across broken glass to advocate for more deer."

The DNR's board plans to take up the recommendation May 28.
 
It really wouldn't hurt a bit to do the same thing in many areas of the Central Forest Zone, but that will never happen due to the amount of hunters it would pi$$ off and the fact that there are areas on the edge of the Forest zone that do have pretty good numbers and could use a moderate harvest to keep the population from going the other direction.
 
Agreed. The entirety of the deer hunting culture between the 2 states is remarkably different. If the MN DNR believed that statement was true, they would likely take action before the herd crashed, instead of the situation we are in now. At least WI is being proactive to avoid ending up like MN. Hopefully MDDI can bring about change.
 
University of Wisconsin-Madison wildlife ecologist Tim Van Deelen said he understands the move but doesn't necessarily agree with it.
The DNR has to respond to hunters who want a bigger herd but deaths of juvenile deer have relatively little impact on future herd size compared with adult doe deaths, which haven't increased greatly.

This comment doesn't make any sense.:confused: If the fawns don't survive how in the hell does he expect the herd to grow in numbers. Talk about an idiot!!!! Did this guy come from Minnesota:rolleyes:
 
Not Minnesota, even worse, Michigan.....JK.. I completely disagree with Van Deelen as well. He doesn't think losing 40% of a year class isn't a bad thing???? Hmm......
 
Not Minnesota, even worse, Michigan.....JK.. I completely disagree with Van Deelen as well. He doesn't think losing 40% of a year class isn't a bad thing???? Hmm......

Yeah i'm in W MI, we have more deer then we know what to do with.
 
buckvelvet I know, just a joke. In MN we'd kill for your herd.
 
Not Minnesota, even worse, Michigan.....JK.. I completely disagree with Van Deelen as well. He doesn't think losing 40% of a year class isn't a bad thing???? Hmm......

What he doesn't tell you is that 77% of the fawns die due to predation and hunting. The 40% is the amount of fawns that died after the hunting and predation due to the winter. So if you started with a 100 fawns take 77 away from predation and hunting that leaves you with 23 fawns going into winter. Now take 40% away from those 23 fawns and you have 12 fawns left. That is if the does even had fawns, most did not last spring.
 
buckvelvet I know, just a joke. In MN we'd kill for your herd.

Ohh I don't know you'd probably bitch about seeing 10 spikes an no mature bucks you QDMA guys........ ;)
 
You are right to some extent Tt. I have a ton of respect for Tim Van Deelen, he was one of the first ones to speak up about the Dr. Deer Report being a bunch of garbage. TVD can say things like that because he is not employed at the DNR and doesn't have to hear the hunter complaints each season. We have to look at a couple things at this point. First off, he is right in some regards; we have to understand that these wildlife biologist are looking at past, long term trends, and IF we had winter like we have had over the long term(10+ past years) with milder temps and minimal snow cover, the adult does we have now could recover the herd relatively quickly, which has been proven in the past during longer periods of mild weather. What these guys don't like to look at is short term trends that can skew the numbers momentarily and then have knee-jerk reactions to managing the resource. That said, if the winters continue on this short term trend we have had the last 2 years, the herd could take years to recover even a little bit and would most likely continue to decline for at least a few years before it started to bounce back, which is very troublesome for the hunters and the DNR, as they will take the brunt of that criticism for not reacting soon enough.
 
Don't forget, it wasn't long ago where hunters weren't shooting enough deer up north.
That dr deer thing was a lot of things, one of which forced the dnr to change its mindset, like admitting there was over harvesting
 
IMHO, I think we as ambassadors of our deer herds, try to instill ideals, ideas, practices, methods, etc., of others and there areas, that will never work for our specific area. I have been hunting the northern forest region since 1980. I don't pretend to think I have all the answers. When my boys started hunting in the early nineties I would not let them harvest any does. Right or wrong, this his how I brought them up. I struggle with how the DNR thinks they can control the deer numbers in the northern forest region. I have seen deer numbers go up and down. The biggest factor in the numbers of our deer herd is the winter weather. All of my food plots and habitat management helps prepare the local herd for winter, but in the large scheme I wonder did anything really make a difference? So, to get to my point, I question whether any free doe license given out with a gun or archery license is needed for doe harvest management in the northern forest region.
 
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Great point about the methods of others in different areas strawhead. Mostly spot on there. I have a perfect example of both your comment about different areas and DNR control or lack thereof. You mention the early 90's. Back then, for about 5 years in our area of WI(the new Central Forest Zone) we could not harvest enough deer, problem was the DNR gave out free unlimited tags for 8-10 more years after that and put us in the situation we now face of seeing very few deer each season. So zero harvest for you in the north may have worked, for us, we took as many as possible for a few years , because that is what was needed at the time. Now we are in the same boat as you and we should be harvesting very few antlerless deer, yet up until these new rules, the DNR continued to give out free unlimited tags during most years and the few years we had a quota, it was still very high.
 
Thanks whip, I do need to add to my last sentence to clarify I meant free antlerless tags in the northern forest region.
 
I have always thought deer should be managed by county instead of zone. Each county could have reps/boards that could help monitor harvest and density numbers. I'd go as far as townships if I were in charge. Populations vary so much from township to township.
 
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